When you think of former President Jimmy Carter, who died in 2024, you don’t immediately think of art. He thinks of the historic peace agreement that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem signed under his leadership in 1979. To his progressive environmental policies. To the long-running hostage crisis in Iran. To the Nobel Peace Prize he received in 2002.
But Carter was also passionate about art and enjoyed painting. Especially after his presidency, which lasted from 1977 to 1981. “It was a way for him to find peace in a very busy life,” says Julia Jones, head of the American Collector Sale at Christie’s auction house in New York, where a handful of Carter’s works will be on sale from next Tuesday. goes under the hammerat two different auctions. According to the AP news agency, Carter once called painting a “rare opportunity for privacy.” The silence made him imagine himself in a different, pleasant world.
An oil painting of, among other things, is being auctioned the church in the US state of Georgia, where Carter was baptized, and an oil painting of a waterfall. He painted the waterfall near the cabin in northern Georgia, Jones says, where he and his wife Rosalynn lived after his presidency. “It was a special place for the Carter family, where they spent time together swimming and fishing.”
Oil painting of the church in Georgia where Jimmy Carter was baptized.
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
According to Jones, there is “an incredible amount of interest” in The Carter Collection, which in addition to paintings also includes personal items of the former president, such as a wooden coffee table he made himself, a Stetson hat, twelve ties and shawls with peanut images – Carter was a peanut farmer before he became president. Collectors of American and presidential history, among others, have registered with the auction house.
Love letter
One of the most discussed objects, according to Jones, is a love letter written by Carter to his wife Rosalynn, on White House stationery. “It’s nice to grow old with you,” Carter writes in the letter, which he ends with a ‘PS’: “Happy birthday.” Jones: “It is an intimate keepsake that sheds light on Jimmy and Rosalynn and their relationship, which they saw as a priority, even during his presidency.”
It is difficult to predict how much the paintings and other objects will fetch. The expectation is that Mountain waterfall and Steeple (the church) will raise between 6,000 and 8,000 dollars (between 5,152 and 6,870 euros). But according to Jones, the majority of the objects open with a starting bid of $100 (85 euros), “which allows everyone to participate and have the opportunity to own a piece of the Carters’ story.”
According to Jones, the auction house has never before auctioned art of an American (former) president. Paintings by the British ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “They sometimes generate millions of dollars.”
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