In 1943, Shoumatoff was told by her friend and client Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who was also the President's mistress:
"You should really paint the President. He has such a remarkable face. There is no painting of him that gives his true expression. I think you could do a wonderful portrait, and he would be such an interesting person to paint! Would you do a portrait of him if it was arranged?"[1]
Rutherfurd would go on to make the arrangements, with Shoumatoff agreeing to sit in for two days within two weeks' time. She said of the agreement: "I was trapped into something I had neither wished for nor planned."[1] She went on to talk about not being able to turn down the honor of being selected for a presidential commission.[1]
Painting
The last photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt, taken by Nicholas Robbins at the Little White House in Warm Springs, April 11, 1945. Roosevelt died the following day.
Elizabeth Shoumatoff had begun working on the portrait of the president around noon on April 12, 1945. Roosevelt was being served lunch when he said "I have a terrific headache." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Roosevelt never regained consciousness and died at 3:35 p.m. that day. Shoumatoff never finished the portrait.
The unfinished portrait hangs at Roosevelt's former health and relaxation retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, known as the Little White House.[2]
Later, Shoumatoff decided to finish the portrait in Roosevelt's memory. She created a new painting based on memory. One difference is that the tie that was red in the original is blue in the finished painting. All other aspects are completely identical. The finished portrait resides in the Legacy Exhibit beside the original at the Little White House Historic Site in Warm Springs.[3]
