FDR Franklin D. Roosevelt Original c.1932 Photo Portrait Poster 26x20 Chicago For Sale

ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. [Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, seated, with facsimile signature.] Chicago: Independent—Progressive, 1241 South State, [c. 1932]. Single-sheet poster, c. 655 × 505 mm (25¾ × 19⅞ in.), printed in sepia from a retouched photograph, the image running to the edges of the sheet; laid down on thin card. Facsimile signature “Franklin D Roosevelt” reversed out in white at lower right; imprint at lower left “INDEPENDENT—PROGRESSIVE / 1241 SOUTH STATE, CHICAGO.” Undated, and without title or slogan.

Roosevelt is shown three-quarter length in a white wicker armchair, leaning forward with his hands clasped. He wears a herringbone tweed suit with a flower in the lapel and smiles straight at the viewer. The likeness appears to date from the early 1930s, when he was Governor of New York. In Chicago in 1932 he won the Democratic nomination for president. He broke with custom by flying to the convention to accept it in person, and in his address of 2 July he declared, “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” That November he defeated Herbert Hoover by some seven million votes.

The sheet was issued in Chicago under the imprint “Independent—Progressive,” at 1241 South State Street, an address that housed printing firms in the 1910s and 1920s. The issuing body has not been identified, nor has the photographer. At about 26 by 20 inches, it is a large and informal photographic image of Roosevelt.

Laid down on thin card. A short tear of about 4 cm runs in from the left edge at the level of the chair back. A fine horizontal crease with a few small flecks of surface loss crosses the forearm at lower centre. There are scattered small rust-brown spots, chiefly along the right edge, with a few small flecks on the forehead above the right eyebrow and one touching the facsimile signature. The background shows faint handling creases and light soiling, and the edges are slightly worn. The image remains strong, and the signature and imprint are clear.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago,” 2 July 1932, in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (text in The American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara); FDR Presidential Library and Museum, “FDR Biography”; Herringshaw’s City Blue Book of Current Biography: Chicagoans of 1916 (Chicago, 1916), s.v. Harman, for the address.

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