January 18, 2017

Portrait of Ellen Emmet c. 1907 by Mary Foote (American, 1847-1938).Ellen Gertrude Emmet Rand (1876-1941) was among the first females in the United States to succeed as a professional portrait artist. She was a contemporary of Mary Foote who painted this portrait of Rand at her easel.

A superb portraitist, Rand is perhaps best known for painting Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s official presidential portrait in 1934, one of hundreds of portraits of politicians, captains of industry, socialites, artists, and scholars completed over her forty-year career...as well as foxhunters of note! You see, she was a foxhunter, too.