In response to my colleague’s “Painting a President” blog post, I thought it would be great to share this image in the hopes that someone out there might know where it now lives! This is the smaller oil sketch Gari Melchers produced of Roosevelt mentioned in his dairy on Saturday, February 29, 1908. It’s as handsome a thing as the larger final canvas, but its disappeared from thin air! Sure would like to hear from our sleuths out there!
Joanna, Have you read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “The Bully Pulpit”? Well I have read every bully word and in the back of my mind I think I read something about the making of this portrait. With over 700 pages I have not located that reference. I do think it was in connection with Archie Butt, Roosevelt’s chief military aide. Butt was close to the family and this leads me to think this work might have been given to him. Just a thought! Perhaps Mrs. Goodwin, whose research notes are overwhelming, can shed some light on your quest to find this work. Bon Chance!
Phyllis Campbell Whitley
THanks heaps little Phyllis! I have sent a query to Ms. Goodwin. Hope you are well and creating beautiful things as always!
I am so happy to share that this study has been found in a private NYC collection and is soon going on public view at Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia! It will be on loan here from June 25 through the end of 2016. We are so glad to have located this work and, through the kind generosity of its present owner, to be able to share it with the public at long last.
That is great news! And how perfectly timed! Now I can look forward to seeing it in person when I come down to visit and speak on the occasion of your exhibition “100 Years of Harmony: Paintings by Gari Melchers.”