SHOUMATOFF, Elizabeth (1888–1980). Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1945. Black and white intaglio print based on the unfinished portrait for which President Roosevelt was sitting when he suffered a fatal stroke on 12 April 1945. Matted 24 x 18”. SIGNED BY ARTIST AT LOWER RIGHT with a card affixed to mat INSCRIBED BY ARTIST TO COLONEL LOWELL H. SMITH. Toning, dampstains. Elizabeth Shoumatoff was commissioned to paint President Roosevelt’s portrait at the suggestion of Roosevelt’s mistress, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. Work commenced on the portrait around noon on April 12, 1945, and shortly after Roosevelt suddenly muttered, “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head” and then collapsed in his chair. He was declared dead hours later. The portrait remained unfinished, however Shoumatoff would go on to recreate it a few months later, and shortly thereafter had black and white copies of the recreated portrait printed for sale. Colonel Lowell H. Smith (here addressed as “H. Lowell Smith”) was a pioneering airman began his military career flying reconnaissance missions for Pancho Villa and then enlisted in the United States military following America’s entry into World War I. In 1923 he and Lt. Paul Richter performed the first mid-air flight refueling; during this flight Smith broke 16 world records including longest time spent airborne at 37 hours, 15 minutes. The following year he was made flight commander of the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Eight months before the attack on Pearl Harbor he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and was later placed in charge of submarine patrols along the South American coast. He died two months after the end of the Second World War.