February 3, 2025, New York — Two historically significant historical objects — a major New Deal painting and an original piece of Roosevelt family furniture — have entered the collection of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College (CUNY). Both relics are now on display for visitors, students, faculty, and participants in public programs at the house, which from 1908 to 1933 served as the Roosevelt family home.
One of the newly acquired pieces is a large oil painting by Italian-born landscape and portrait artist Michael Califano celebrating the transformative impact of FDR’s New Deal on New York City. The canvas was donated to the house by the family of the late Richard Ravitch (1933–2023), former Lieutenant Governor of New York and founding member of the Roosevelt House Advisory Board.
The other new acquisition is a large, century-old mahogany breakfront and desk originally purchased by the Roosevelt family from the B. Altman department store around 1930, when Franklin and Eleanor still lived part-time in Roosevelt House at 47-49 East 65th Street. The piece was recently returned to the house by Val Kill, the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site at Hyde Park, New York.
To mark Black History Month (February), Roosevelt House concurrently announced the acquisition of a sculpted portrait of 19th-century abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass. And to mark the 80th anniversary of the President’s death, the collection has been further augmented by a comprehensive set of reproductions of the naval prints FDR once owned.
“We are enormously grateful to the donors who have so dramatically enhanced the Roosevelt House collection,” said Hunter College President Nancy Cantor. “As Roosevelt House continues fulfilling its mission to provide undergraduate education and catalyze community engagement, we also recognize its unique status as a historic home. Here, for 25 years, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt lived their private lives and pursued their enormously consequential public careers. These important new acquisitions help us remember the Roosevelt family past even as the family legacy continues inspiring us to address the challenges of the present and future.”
Said Harold Holzer, who serves as the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House: “These gifts demonstrate the generosity of our supporters as well as the collegial relationship among Roosevelt sites around the country. Our thanks go to Val Kill, for offering us the family breakfront. And we are particularly indebted to the family of Richard Ravitch for donating a painting that I know Dick treasured. Its presence here will continue to remind us of the crucial leadership role he played in establishing and supporting the house. I also want to celebrate the work of longtime Roosevelt House curator and historian Deborah Gardner, who played a key role in acquiring the breakfront, and has expertly installed both pieces on site.”
Painting: Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Achievements (ca. 1940)
The work of Italian-born artist Michael Califano (1890–1979), the five-by-seven-foot oil on canvas celebrates the domestic achievements of FDR’s New Deal in vignetted scenes identified by individual scrolls marked: Banks Open; Industry Revived; Prohibition Repealed; Home Loan; Federal Housing Administration; Farm Relief; Rail Roads; Shipping; Aviation; Federal Art Project; the Work Progress Administration; Forests Restoration Administration; and Veterans Bonus. A handsome portrait of President Roosevelt stands out against the dome of the U.S. Capitol at the top.
For example, Califano “toasts” the end of prohibition by depicting a tavern bar adorned with larger-than-life glass goblets. Men languishing in unemployment lines are contrasted to long lines of applicants for newly available jobs. In the background, the sun-drenched New York City skyline looms alongside soaring airplanes set against one of the city’s key New Deal construction projects: the Triboro (now RFK) Bridge.
Artist Califano emigrated to the U.S. in 1922 after studies at the Institute of Arts in Naples. His talent was recognized early in Italy, where he became court painter to Queen Elena (the wife of Victor Emanuel III). Califano’s portrait commissions in his native country included Marconi and Mussolini. Califano lost his hearing while serving on the Austrian front in World War I, and his disability nearly prevented his entry into the U.S. through Ellis Island. Eventually settling here, he painted President Calvin Coolidge, matinee idol Rudolph Valentino, aviator (and later, FDR critic) Charles Lindbergh, and Roosevelt’s 1940 election opponent, Wendell Willkie.
His ambitious New Deal painting comes to Roosevelt House is a gift of the Ravitch Family, with special thanks to Kathleen M. Doyle. The painting is now on view in the first-floor east parlor.
Eleanor Roosevelt Breakfront
The newly acquired, Chippendale-style breakfront, which features satinwood inlay, a hidden slant-front desk, and mullioned glass doors in the top section, is one of the pieces that Mrs. Roosevelt purchased for the family’s Manhattan home a few years before she and her husband moved to the White House in 1933. She originally placed it in the second-floor family parlor, where its graceful lines and mahogany finish would stand out against the cream-colored walls. The piece remained in the family until 1951, when it was sold in a major auction of 1,503 Roosevelt family items for the benefit of the March of Dimes.
The breakfront was purchased at the 1951 sale by the industrialist and art collector Dr. Armand Hammer, who promptly sent it to the Roosevelt family summer home on Campobello Island in Canada. It remained at Campobello until 2008, when it was shipped to Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val Kill cottage at Hyde Park. When interpretation plans at Val Kill changed, it was offered to Roosevelt House. Now it stands on permeant display against the Morgenthau staircase in the first-floor Sara Delano Roosevelt (west) parlor.
Special Addition: Sculpted Tribute to Frederick Douglass
Roosevelt House also announced the extraordinarily generous donation of a bas relief portrait in bronze by Greg Wyatt depicting abolitionist hero Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), created especially for the House by the sculptor. Set atop a cherrywood pedestal 63-inches tall and 22-inches in diameter, the piece boasts three inspirational quotes attributed to Douglass.
On the main plaque, Douglass is depicted with his characteristic beard and leonine head, seated, relaxed, but upright. The bronze image bears close resemblance to photos of Douglass as he appeared during the Civil War. On the second plaque are Douglass’s words:
A single individual armed with truth, is a majority against the world.
At last the edict of freedom has gone forth, and the people are prepared to sustain it and carry it out.
There are no such things as new truths. Error might be old or new, but truth is as old as the universe.
Sculptor Wyatt received his BA in art history from Columbia in 1971 and studied classical sculpture for three years at the National Academy of Design’s School of Fine Arts under Evangelos Frudakis, N.A. In 1974, Wyatt earned his MA in ceramic arts from the Columbia University Teachers College. He completed his doctoral coursework in art education in 1976.
Wyatt is a native of Grand View-on-Hudson, NY. He was nurtured in the artistic tradition of his native Hudson River Valley at an early age by his father, Professor William Stanley Wyatt, painter and fine arts professor at Columbia and CCNY. The younger Wyatt’s cast bronze work resides in many sculpture gardens and museum collections in the U.S. and abroad, including England, Spain, France, and Italy. His work can also be found in non-profit institutions and state government and private and corporate collections. The winner of a number of professional honors and recognitions, Wyatt is currently sculptor-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.
FDR’s Naval Prints Re-created
Finally, Roosevelt House has welcomed an FDR Maritime Collection comprised of 16 naval prints—fine reproductions of the originals collected by President Roosevelt and displayed in a 1962 exhibit at the National Archives in Washington. The prints were donated to Roosevelt House by the family of John Deep in honor of his late wife Martha who had encouraged him in his naval history interests.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a lifelong collector. He is known primarily for his stamp and book collections, but his largest collection related to the United States Navy. Besides prints, watercolors, and oil paintings, his Navy collection of more than 5,000 items included pamphlets, books, models, broadsides, music, and more.
Roosevelt displayed items from his naval collections wherever he worked and lived: in his home library here at 49 East 65th Street, Hyde Park, in his offices in downtown Manhattan, in the State Capitol and Governor’s Mansion in Albany; and finally at the White House. The originals became part of the F.D.R. Presidential Library and Museum.
Roosevelt House, an integral part of Hunter College since 1943, re-opened in 2010 as a public policy institute honoring the distinguished legacies of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived here from 1908 until 1933. Its mission is three-fold: to educate students in public policy and human rights, to support faculty research, and to foster creative dialogue and civic engagement through public programming. Roosevelt House also offers tours and exhibits that bring the history of the Roosevelts to a wide audience.
Hunter College, located in the heart of Manhattan, is the largest college in the City University of New York system. Founded in 1870, it is also one of the oldest public colleges in the country and famous for the diversity of its student body, which is as diverse as New York City itself. Most Hunter students are the first in their families to attend college, and many go on to top professional and graduate programs, winning Fulbright scholarships, Mellon fellowships, National Institutes of Health grants, and other competitive honors. More than 23,000 students currently attend Hunter, pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in more than 170 areas of study. The 1,700 full- and part-time members of Hunter’s faculty are unparalleled. They receive prestigious national grants, contribute to the world’s leading academic journals, and play major roles in cutting-edge research. They are fighting cancer, formulating public policy, expanding our culture, enhancing technology, and more.
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