Ms. Elam told her son, William Elam, to lend the pieces anonymously to the White House’s art collection in July 1978 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
Posted on 03/16/2023 6:31:33 AM PDT by Red Badger
An unlikely custody battle has broken out over a stash of Norman Rockwell art allegedly stolen and hidden for decades—in the White House.
In 1943, Rockwell created several sketches and watercolors chronicling a typical day in the White House’s executive wing, depicting everyone from senators to soldiers sitting on red sofas and chairs as they waited to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The resulting montage, “So You Want to See the President,” ran in the Nov. 13, 1943, issue of “The Saturday Evening Post.”
Rockwell gave the four original works on paper from that assignment to FDR’s longtime press secretary, Stephen Early, who thanked the artist in a letter. “I am as proud of these original sketches of yours as Churchill was of the R.A.F.,” Mr. Early wrote, referring to England’s Royal Air Force.
Now, Mr. Early’s descendants are embroiled in a dramatic dispute worthy of “The West Wing” over what happened next, with relatives slinging accusations of theft and fraud against the backdrop of a White House art collection rarely seen by the public. No one at the White House is implicated in any wrongdoing.
Heirs of Mr. Early’s two sons are alleging that their late sister, Helen Early Elam, reneged on a pledge to hang onto the Rockwells as part of their shared inheritance after their father died in 1951 and their mother followed in 1978, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Instead, the sons’ heirs allege that Ms. Elam told her son, William Elam, to lend the pieces anonymously to the White House’s art collection in July 1978 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Obviously this is President in Exile Trump’s doing! *SMIRK*
Which is more 'still life'....Biden or the Rockwell paintings?
He looks so lifelike...................
I want to know what the White House did with all of the Hunter Biden paintings that I bought and lent to the White House!
They are on the refrigerator in the kitchen..............
As life-like as a corpse can be!
Changing the name of the publication is a clown move. You should know better than that.
I’m surprised hunter didn’t paint little black mustaches on them and try to sell them as his own.
“They are on the refrigerator in the kitchen.”
I had a few on the fridge, too. But my dog managed to hike his hind leg up high enough to show me what he thought of them. Although, they actually look better wadded up in the garbage.
maybe it was auto-corrected by spell check?
Ms. Elam told her son, William Elam, to lend the pieces anonymously to the White House’s art collection in July 1978 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
Of course it was a Democrat that stole the sketches.
These paintings are aboard a C-5 and heading to Joe’s mansion in China...even as we speak.
Who says Joe is slow in reacting to a dire emergency?
Figures. ‘Rats always steal stuff.
Of course they try to make it sound as if Trump stole them but Biden sent them back, when in fact they were loaned to the Carter Admin. TDS
I saw them on a White House tour, and they are delightful sketches of many types of people waiting in the lobby of the West Wing to see various officials.
My brother has a Rockwell but can’t sell it. It was a personal note from Rockwell to him and he sketched a dog on it.
They were hanging in the West Wing on or last tour in February 2020. Stephen Miller was getting married that evening and one of his lawyers gave us the tour.
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