DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER IKE ORIGINAL 4X4 1952 PAINTING Start Price USD 100,000.00 Current Price USD 100,000.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price USD 2,000,000.00 Reserve Price - Start Time Friday, July 18, 2008 End Time Monday, July 28, 2008 Location Harrisburg, PA See more about 'DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER IKE ORIGINAL 4X4 1952 PAINTING ' Description 100% GENUINE HISTORIC MUSEUM QUALITY 4+ FOOT BY 4+ FOOT ACCORDING TO PREVIOUS OWNER WHO HAD THIS TUCKED AWAY FOR YEARS SWORE THIS IS WORTH ALOT OF MONEY SUPPOSEDLY A SELF PORTRAIT OF PRESIDENT DWIGHT D EISENHOWER IN ORIGINAL FRAME BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT.  OIL ON CANVAS.  INSCRIBED TO HAROLD F ROWE & CLAIRE ROWE AND DATED JULY OF 1952 BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT IN NOVEMBER 1952.  USES EISENHOWERS FAVORITE BLUE COLORED PAINT AND STYLE.  HUNG IN CITY HALL (OR CAPITAL?) OF PENNSYLVANIA FOR MANY YEARS...VIEWED BY THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.  THERE ARE ONLY A HANDFUL OF DWIGHT D EISENHOWER PAINTINGS IN PUBLIC HANDS I'M NOT SURE HOW TO PRICE IT.  THIS PAINTING HAS NEVER BEEN ON THE MARKET FOR SALE BEFORE.  HE WAS THE SUPREME COMANDER OF ALLIED FORCES IN WORLD WAR II AS WELL AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST MASSIVE AND SUPREME OF ALL PAINTINGS MADE OF HIM BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT.  A MUST HAVE FOR ANY PRESIDENTIAL OR FAMOUS PERSON PAINTING COLLECTION.  MIGHT EVEN HAVE GLOBAL APPEAL SINCE HE WAS THE SUPREME COMMANDER OF ALL ALLIED FORCES IN WWII.  ALSO WOULD FIT NICELY IN ANY AMERICAN FOLK ART OR POP ART COLLECTION OR ANY OTHER COLLECTION OF UNIQUE ITEMS.  EISONHOWER LIVED NEAR US ON A FARM IN GETTYSBURG, MOST OF HIS PAINTINGS IN PUBLIC HANDS WERE GIFT'S.  I'M NOT SURE WHO THE ROWE'S WERE, IT IS A COMMON LOCAL NAME. A CHURCHILL PAINTING SOLD FOR OVER $2MILLION HERE: http://en.artron.net/news/news.php?newid=44175&column_id=65 SOME HISTORY: Eisenhower began painting at age 58 almost by accident. It was February 1948 in New York where Eisenhower had recently accepted the position of president of Columbia College. Thomas E. Stephens, a New York portrait artist, was commissioned to paint a portrait of Mamie Eisenhower, and Dwight Eisenhower watched the process with keen interest. While the artist and subject toured the house to look for the right place to hang the finished portrait, Eisenhower decided to try his hand at a painting using Stephens' brushes and mixed paints. He and an aide jury-rigged a canvas by stretching a clean dust cloth over a piece of cardboard. By the time his wife and Stephens returned, Eisenhower had finished his first painting. "I displayed my version of Mamie," Eisenhower wrote, "weird and wonderful to behold, and we all laughed heartily." Although encouraged by Stephens to keep painting, Eisenhower decided art was beyond him. However, a few days later, Stephens mailed to Eishenhower a complete paint set and portable easel in a package Eisenhower said included "everything I could possibly need -- - except ability --- to start painting." Eisenhower at first ignored the art supplies but his curiosity got the best of him, and it wasn't long before he found a hobby in which he could indulge when bad weather or lack of time prevented him from playing golf. He once mused how nice it would be if he could "install a compact painting outfit on a golf cart." Medina said painting provided a necessary outlet for Eisenhower, who kept up the pastime while in the White House. Eisenhower kept a small studio in a small room on the second floor of the executive mansion where he could stop in to paint if even for only a few minutes. Medina said painting relaxed Eisenhower, so much so that "whenever he went on vacation, he usually took his painting equipment along." Painting also was a passion Eisenhower shared with Winston Churchill, and the two world leaders' letters to one another nearly always end with comments on their latest paintings and or artistic problems. Eisenhower was his own worst critic and would "refuse to refer to my productions as paintings." He called them 'daubs born of my love of color and in my pleasure in experimenting, nothing else. I destroy two out of every three I start.' " Only reluctantly did Eisenhower agree to have six of his paintings reproduced as large-scale Christmas gift prints during his eight years as president. In a letter to Joyce Hall, a personal friend and president of Hallmark Co. which reproduced the prints, Eisenhower wrote, "As you know, I always hesitate to inflict my 'art' on my friends and members of my staff, but Hallmark makes such a beautiful package job that I am, and I hope others are, distracted into the belief that the whole thing is a superior product." Eisenhower continued to paint until his health prevented him from doing so, and the exhibit includes an unfinished landscape likely started before his last stay at Walter Reed Hospital where he died March 28, 1969. One panel in "The Paintings of Dwight D. Eisenhower" explains its purpose. "This exhibition is a salute to not only Eisenhower's artistic endeavors, but also to his life," the panel says. "He was one of the great leaders of this century and one of the most popular men in the world. "He made decisions that affected the future of an entire continent, set a country on course and captured the trust and affection of freedom-loving people throughout the world. But during his time for painting, he enjoyed the respite from decision-making and the soothing qualities of contemplation afforded by the pastime." Place a Bid!