Elizabeth Shoumatoff ( Russian: Елизавета Николаевна Шуматова, ''Yelizaveta Nikolayevna Shumatova'',

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth ...

Avinoff) (October 6, 1888 – November 30, 1980) was a Russian-American painter who was best known for painting the '' Unfinished Portrait'' of

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

. Other paintings included portraits of

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

and

Lady Bird Johnson Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson ('' née'' Taylor; December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She previously served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 w ...

Early life

Shoumatoff was born in

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

) on October 6, 1888, the youngest child of an aristocratic military family in what was then

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. T ...

. Her father, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Avinov (1844-1911) was a lieutenant-general in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, Romanization of Russian, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the earl ...

. Her eldest sibling Nikolai, a professor of fiscal law, was executed in 1937 during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

. Her next oldest brother

Andrey Avinoff Andrey Avinoff (14 February 1884 – 16 July 1949); was an internationally-known artist, lepidopterist, museum director, professor, bibliophile and iconographer, who served as the director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburg ...

was a prominent

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

and

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...

. Elizabeth Shoumatoff went to the United States with her husband Leo Shoumatoff (a member of the Russian Purchasing Commission) in 1917 and after the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

decided to stay there. They eventually made their home on Long Island. Leo Shoumatoff died in 1928 (drowned).

Career

Shoumatoff's extraordinary talent for portraiture brought commissions from some of the most illustrious families in America, Great Britain and Europe. Her clients included members of the Frick, du Pont, Mellon, Boman, Woodruff and Firestone families, plus the

Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg The Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg constitutes the House of Luxembourg-Nassau, headed by the sovereign Grand Duke, and in which the throne of the grand duchy is hereditary. It consists of heirs and descendants of the House of Nassau-Weilburg, ...

. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was sitting for her at

Warm Springs, Georgia Warm Springs is a city in Meriwether County, Georgia, United States. The population was 425 at the 2010 census. History Warm Springs, originally named Bullochville (after the Bulloch family, which began after Stephen Bullock moved to Meriwethe ...

, when he suffered a fatal

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

on April 12, 1945. When she was working, he said "I have a terrific headache." Shoumatoff's portrait of

is on display at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C., NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. preside ...

. Johnson, who had famously rejected Peter Hurd's prior attempt by calling it "the ugliest thing I ever saw", approved Shoumatoff's painting as his official presidential portrait. Hurd's painting is exhibited at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

.Gamarekian, Barbara. "Putting the V.I.P.'s on Canvas," ''The New York Times'', Monday, April 7, 1986.
Retrieved November 11, 2021

Death and legacy

A longtime resident of

Locust Valley, New York Locust Valley is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) located in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 3,406 at the 2010 census. History The rolling h ...

, Shoumatoff died in November 1980 aged 92. Her estate donated some of the sketches related to the ''Unfinished Portrait'' to the

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum holds the records of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States (1933–1945). Located on the grounds of Springwood, the Roosevelt family estate in Hyde Park, New ...

Hyde Park, New York Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park (CDP), New York, Hyde Park, East Park, Staatsburg, and Haviland, New York, Haviland. ...

. Some of her other works and materials from the latter part of her life are now in the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

Gallery

File:Portrait of Lyndon Baines Johnson - NARA - 192423.tif, ''Portrait of Lyndon Baines Johnson'', oil paint, 1969. File:Ljohnson.jpeg, Official Presidential portrait of Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1968. File:Watercolor-portait-of-andrey-avinoff.jpg, Watercolor portrait of Shoumatoff's brother,

, 1975. File:Portrait of Ethel Roosevelt Derby (99ce80ec-9296-4b34-b2f6-bf7caa3eb49a).JPG, ''Portrait of Ethel Roosevelt Derby'', oil paint.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shoumatoff, Elizabeth 1888 births 1980 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists American people of Russian descent American portrait painters American women painters Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States