International Center for Journalists – ICFJ's Presidential Collection
Auction Ends: Nov 11, 2012 12:00 AM EST

Art

Not Yet Rivals, Los Angeles, 1974 (limited edition, framed photo)

Item Number
118
Estimated Value
2000 USD
Sold
1000 USD to Live Event Bidder

Live Event Item

After the online close, this item went to a Live Event for further bidding. Absentee Bidding offered.

Item Description

Gerald R. Ford had been president for less than three months when he had a late evening chat with California Gov. Ronald Reagan at the Century Plaza Hotel. Also in the room, but not pictured, was Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, who would become vice president years later. Official White House photographer David Hume Kennerly recalls that the men weren’t close friends, but the conversation was pleasant. “At that point, I don’t think Ford was thinking about running for a full term in his own right,” Kennerly says. “I don’t know if Reagan had his eye on the presidency, either.”

The pleasantries wouldn’t last. Two years later, Reagan challenged Ford for the Republican presidential nomination. He didn’t prevail—at least not then. But in the 1980 election, Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, who had edged out Ford in 1976. “This looks like a scene from The Godfather,” Kennerly says. “Two powerful guys in tuxedos, sizing each other up.” The photo ran in Vanity Fair in a story about Kennerly’s book on Ford called Extraordinary Circumstances: The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford.

Item Special Note

This framed photo is signed and numbered by Kennerly. It is a 16" by 20" archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta paper.