Norman Rockwell Captured the Hustle of the West Wing in Colorful Drawings Displayed for Decades in the White House. They’re Now on Public View for the First Time
The works were commissioned to humanize President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the height of World War II
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In 1943, Norman Rockwell spent hours in the lobby of the West Wing, watching the steady stream of visitors waiting to see President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The American artist turned those White House observations into four colorful sketches called So You Want to See the President!, which were published in The Saturday Evening Post later that same year.
Now, as America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, the original drawings are being displayed publicly for the first time. They’re on view now at The People’s House: A White House Experience, a museum in Washington, D.C. run by the White House Historical Association, a nonprofit that aims to give visitors a behind-the-scenes glimpse into life and work at America’s most famous residence.
So You Want to See the President! is a feast for the eyes, showing the wide variety of people hoping to speak with the president. It depicts White House reporters, military officials, politicians, a photographer, a Scottish soldier and Miss America—plus the Secret Service agents watching over them all. An aide pushes a cart that contains Roosevelt’s lunch—while being chased by the president’s beloved Scottish terrier, Fala—and secretaries dash around holding papers. Roosevelt himself, meanwhile, is inconspicuous, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office behind a half-open door in the lower righthand corner.
“It does have a little bit of that concept of a comic or a graphic novel, where an artist can show a number of things that are happening over the course of time,” Stephanie Plunkett, chief curator at the Norman Rockwell Museum, tells USA Today’s Karissa Waddick.
Rockwell, the artist best known for his detailed and often humorous depictions of everyday life, was commissioned to create So You Want to See the President! by Stephen Early, Roosevelt’s press secretary. Early hoped the drawings might help humanize the president amid World War II, portraying him as accessible and engaged while also giving the American people an intimate look at his day-to-day work.
While working on the piece, Rockwell ended up people-watching in the West Wing twice, because the sketches from his first visit were destroyed in a fire at his Vermont studio. The resulting scenes “capture democracy in action during a pivotal moment in American history and reflect the enduring ideals of civic engagement,” according to the association.
After the sketches appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell gave the originals to Early, who displayed them in his West Wing office. When Early died in 1951, the drawings went to his daughter, Helen. She hung them in the family’s dining room, where they became a familiar backdrop for family meals—and the occasional mishap.
“I wasn't really old enough to know that I shouldn't catapult my spoon in the direction of Miss America and splatter her with my SpaghettiOs, which I did,” William Elam III, Helen’s son, tells NPR’s Elizabeth Blair.
Did you know? Miss America
The Miss America depicted in the painting is Rosemary LaPlanche, who won the contest in 1941 and was involved in the WWII war bonds effort. However, another woman, 17-year-old Marie McIntyre, posed as Miss America while Rockwell worked on the drawings, per NPR.
In 1978, the family loaned them to White House, where they hung for more than four decades. The paintings eventually passed to Elam but, in 2017, other family members took him to court. After a lengthy legal battle, a federal judge determined he was their sole owner.
In 2025, Elam decided to part ways with So You Want to See the President!. The White House Historical Association didn’t want the drawings to end up hidden away somewhere in a private collection, so it spent $7.25 million to buy them at auction, the most it had ever spent on a work of art.
“Since they had been seen by the eyes of so many presidents and first ladies and senior White House staff and important visitors from around the world, we wanted the American people to see them, so we acquired them,” Stewart McLaurin, the association’s president, tells Darlene Superville of the Associated Press. “In our view, these are priceless works.”
So You Want to See The President! is on view at The People’s House: A White House Experience in Washington, D.C. through June 2027.
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