A Lincoln painting's journey from the White House to North Dakota

There was something intriguing about the oil painting of Abraham Lincoln hanging on David Soderquist’s home office wall in New York. It features a three-quarter profile of a clean-shaven Lincoln dressed in formal attire.

Surrounded by cabinets and shelves full of books about ships and art, Soderquist would sit at his desk, stare at the painting and wonder: Why did it speak to him? Who had owned it before?

The artist and former financial adviser wasn’t the first to admire the painting of a beardless, well-dressed Lincoln.

After years of digging, the answers Soderquist found mean many other Americans will get the chance to admire the picture at the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. The library is set to open on July 4, the nation's 250th birthday.

This is a story of gift giving Soderquist hopes will continue.

In 2021, Soderquist’s aunt downsized after the death of her husband. She gave Soderquist and his brother, John, a collection of paintings and antiques. Soderquist stood in the garage as his brother retrieved the Lincoln portrait from the attic.

“I just saw it lowering down like it was coming out of the heavens… I thought, ‘Wow,’" Soderquist recalled.

He immediately asked his brother if he could keep it. John said yes, with one caveat: They would split the proceeds, if the painting was ever sold.

Soderquist is a lifelong fan of Lincoln’s resilience and faith. In his youth, he wrote inspirational quotes and drew stars on the late president's portraits.

"To me, he emulated everything that I would want to be as a human being," Soderquist told USA TODAY.

The brown- and gold-framed piece soon found a home in his office.

Starting in 2021, Soderquist began researching the painting's origin. The signature in the upper left-hand corner confirmed the artist was the American realist Ernest Wells. The date alongside showed it was based on a photo of Lincoln used in his presidential campaign.

He dropped the effort when he hit roadblocks, only to return over and over. Wells wasn’t a prominent artist, art historians told him, and the piece wasn’t worth much because it was a painting of a picture, rather than a portrait for which Lincoln sat. One auction house told Soderquist he could sell the painting for $700 at most.

He couldn’t let it go.

"As I kept looking at it, something fired in my brain and I just said, 'I want to really bear down and find out exactly what the deal is here,'” he said.

In September 2025 Soderquist resumed investigating. An “intriguing” note glued to the back of the painting mentioned it was purchased from one of Lincoln's personal bodyguards.

Soderquist believes the note was typed by Belle da Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian. It documented the portrait's sale from Col. William H. Crook to Morgan on Jan. 5, 1912.

As Soderquist dug, the story slowly came together. In September 2025, he connected with the art historian and chief curator at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The historian found documentation of the sale that included letters from the White House confirming the painting hung there for six years.

Wells gifted his painting to Roosevelt in 1903, four years after completing it. Roosevelt, a well-known admirer of Lincoln, promptly hung it in his White House office and wrote a letter of thanks that Wells carried for years.

Photos from the time show the painting hung opposite Roosevelt’s desk, the only picture on the green wall. Roosevelt spoke of looking to Lincoln's example when faced with difficult decisions. Accounts from aides and cabinet officers state he would often turn to the painting and ask aloud, “What would Lincoln do?”

When he left the White House in March 1909, Roosevelt gifted the canvas to Crook, his chief disbursing officer.

In 1912, Crook sold it for $300 to Morgan. The banker's librarian – da Costa Greene – managed the sale. When Morgan died the next year, most of his vast collection went to American museums. But the Wells painting was sold. Soderquist’s family purchased it at auction in 1975.

Soderquist said art museums across the United States turned down his offer to loan the painting. The fact that it hung in the White House for so long and was cherished by Roosevelt is where its value lies, he said.

He said he was struck by the scope of the decisions Roosevelt made with the portrait in the room, from the creation of the Panama Canal to adding millions of acres to the national park system.

When he reached out to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library for help authenticating the piece, the curator was interested in borrowing it, he said. It will be on public display, when the museum opens on Independence Day.

The exhibit will feature it just as it appeared in Roosevelt's office. Visitors will be able to interact with an AI version of the former president who can answer questions about what the painting meant to him.

"He cites Lincoln in several of his speeches and I think he looks to the guidance of a man who kept the country together in a very difficult time," library spokesman Matt Briney said.

It isn't uncommon for pieces of American history to land in private hands, but a find like this is unusual, Briney said.

"There's just a remarkable story about the lineage of this object," he said. "Those are the finds that curators love for the provenance, and it's just very rare to ever have."

Soderquist believes he is the 7th custodian of the painting, which is now in North Dakota awaiting the museum's opening. He isn’t disclosing its most recent valuation but said the costs of insuring and conserving the painting mean it will likely never hang on his office wall again.

He’s looking for the 8th custodian. He hopes a wealthy person will buy it and gift it to the American people as a tax write-off. The costs of making such a gift and his financial obligations to his brother mean he cannot give the painting to the museum himself, Soderquist said.

The museum is helping to find its next buyer, according to Soderquist. Briney said he could not discuss whether the library is doing that, though he added publicly displaying such pieces often creates interest in making sure they can stay in the public sphere. Briney also said the museum is interested in displaying the Lincoln portrait permanently.

"For us, it's a great object to be able to have on display for our grand opening and we're just grateful that David and his family chose to allow us to have it," Briney said.

Soderquist said the most important thing for his family is that Americans have access to the portrait.

“We don't want it on some hedge fund manager's wall in Greenwich, Connecticut. We'd rather have it so the American people can see it. And that's kind of in the spirit of J.P. Morgan,” Soderquist said. “He felt art should be seen by the public. And that was also the shared feeling of Theodore Roosevelt – that the gifts that he got really belonged to the American people.”