Samuel M. Roosevelt

Who was Samuel M. Roosevelt?

Samuel Montgomery Roosevelt was an American artist and merchant from New York City.

A wine merchant by trade, he was the son of prominent businessman Samuel Roosevelt and the grandson of Nicholas Roosevelt, an inventor involved with the steamboat. He was educated at St. John's School in Ossining, New York and studied art at the Art Students League of New York and in Paris, and studied painting under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. An accomplished portrait artist, he is remembered for his portraits of his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt, Oliver Belmont, Hudson Maxim, Henry Shoemaker, and others. His work was exhibited at the Paris Salon and the National Academy of Design and in Philadelphia and Chicago. He was President of the National Association of Portrait Painters from 1912 until his death. He was also New York City Commissioner of Schools.

Roosevelt was also an active sportsman, skilled at fencing and interested in yachting. He went to Colorado in 1878 on ranching and scouting expeditions with the ninth cavalry against the Ute Indians, and was described as having been a "cowboy" for a period by a cousin upon his death. He entertained frequently and gained notoriety for once serving a whole roasted baby lion to guests. He was a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.