Ellen Emmet Rand

Rand was born in San Francisco, and at age twelve went to Boston to study drawing with American impressionist Dennis Miller Bunker at the Cowels Art School. She also attended classes at the Art Students League in New York, where she studied portraiture with William Merritt Chase and Kenyon Cox.

From 1893 to 1894, Rand worked as an illustrator for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. In 1896, her family moved to England, and in 1897, Rand and her sisters settled in Paris, where she continued to paint, earning a Bronze Medal at the Exposition Universelle.

Rand returned to New York in 1900, and established a portrait studio. In 1902, she held a solo exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, a commercial space best known for showing the French impressionists, including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In the 1930s, Rand completed three portraits of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, including his official White House portrait.