{ Margaret Holland Sargent in her award room and her painting of Ford, commissioned by Time magazine \ Photos: Courtesy Margaret Holland Sargent }

“The lost Gerald Ford portrait: An art mystery” by Yahoo News Chief National Correspondent Lisa Belkin details the journey of a 1974 portrait of Gerald R. Ford by Margaret Holland Sargent which was recently gifted by former Ford Administration member Paul O’Neill to Susan Ford Bales, daughter of Gerald and Betty Ford.

Margaret Holland Sargent’s painting was selected for Time Magazine’s 1976 Bicentennial issue dedicated to U.S. Presidents. Following whereabouts unknown throughout almost 40 years, the painting was located by Richard Levitan and Susan Edgman-Levitan in their Chestnut Hill, MA home in the fall of 2014 without either having any knowledge of how it came into their possession.

While Susan was attending a conference in San Diego, she and Richard sat with Paul O’Neill who served in the Ford White House as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. They asked O’Neill to help them somehow get the painting to the Ford family. Together with Lisa Belkin, Richard Levitan and Susan Edgman-Levitan, Margaret Holland Sargent and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Paul O’Neill worked to put together the story behind the painting and its journey.

Paul O’Neill, the presenter of the 2015 William E. Simon Lecture on Public Affairs in Grand Rapids, Michigan, retold the background and research undertaken on the portrait. O’Neill then announced on stage at the Simon Lecture Luncheon on July 14, 2015 that Susan Ford Bales should decide where the painting would go but his idea would be for it to be placed in public viewing at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.

To read more from Lisa Belkin’s incredible story on the lost Ford portrait, please visit: https://www.yahoo.com/politics/the-lost-gerald-ford-portrait-an-art-mystery-124002581731.html

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