The unfinished portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt is a watercolor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. Shoumatoff was commissioned to paint a portrait of Roosevelt and started her work around noon on April 12, 1945. At lunch, while sitting for the portrait, Roosevelt complained of a headache and subsequently collapsed. The president, who had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, died later that day. FDR had galloping hypertension for several years before. The FDR Library Virtual Tour notes that about 15 minutes after the cerebral hemorrhage, arterial tension was measured at well over 300 systolic, diastolic 190.
While Shoumatoff never finished the portrait, she later painted a new one from memory, which wound up being largely identical. The unfinished portrait hangs at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt's personal retreat, with the finished version beside it.
History
In 1943, Shoumatoff was told by her friend and client Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who was also the President's mistress:
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." The finished portrait resides at the Little White House Historic Site, beside the original.