Pencil drawing of FDR accomplished by an amateur artist on a tan 7.5 x 10.25 sheet, signed in fountain pen in the lower margin, "Franklin D. Roosevelt." Double-matted and framed to an overall size of 14.5 x 18. In fine condition, with slightly irregular light toning. Accompanied by a 1932 letter of transmittal from Roosevelt's private secretary, M. A. LeHand, sending the signed drawing to Carolyn Brown (evidently the artist).
In 1923, FDR embarked on an affair with his young secretary, Marguerite A. 'Missy' LeHand (1898-1944), that was to last for the remainder of their lives. Though it was scarcely whispered about in the press in the pre-Watergate era, the liaison was an open secret among FDR's associates and family. Roosevelt's son, Elliot, later wrote that FDR's friends 'accepted it as a matter of course' and that FDR himself 'made no attempts to conceal his feelings about Missy.'
Provenance: from the estate of Senator Carl Levin. A lifelong Democrat, ardent advocate for civil rights, and staple of the United States Senate from 1979 to 2015, Senator Levin was also a longtime client of RR Auction. As a collector, he favored his political heroes—Harry S. Truman, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr.—as well as those figures emblematic of the American spirit, like Robert Frost, Joe Louis, and Helen Keller.
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