Kaufman, Enit, 1908?-1961

Artist Enit Zerner Kaufman (1908?-1961) was born outside Vienna, and she emigrated to New York City in 1939. Kaufman was responsible for the portraits of eminent Americans in American Portraits (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1946), for which Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote the accompanying biographical texts.

Enit Zerner Kaufman (1908?-1961) was born near Vienna, where she later studied art. Her primary interest was portraiture, and she soon created a name for herself painting prominent Europeans, including Albert Sarraut and Georges Duhamel, among others. Her work was featured in several successful exhibitions in Paris, where her skillful paintings of women and children also attracted attention. Her life and career were changed dramatically by the onset of World War II, and she fled the turbulence of Europe for an uncertain future in New York City in 1939, along with her husband Edward, a lawyer.

Kaufman worked with great determination in the United States to resume her interrupted career and achieved some success, teaching art and working to rebuild her reputation as a portraitist. As had been the case in Europe, many of her subjects were prominent figures in government, education, and the arts. She had the distinction of painting four American Presidents, including Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Her work was featured in a number of exhibitions in the 1940s and 1950s, including an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and another at the New York Historical Society.

Enit Kaufman's participation in the creation of American Portraits (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1946) grew out of her experience both as a painter of the prominent figures of the time, and as a refugee from a region whose leadership had run amok. Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote the biographical profiles which accompanied Kaufman's portraits of eminent Americans. The authors were interested in the nature of leadership, and asked many of their subjects, often leaders in their fields, to write down their thoughts on the subject. Kaufman and Canfield Fisher initially considered incorporating these responses into American Portraits; instead, these Statements of Leadership were featured in a piece in the Sunday edition of the New York Times in 1951.

Kaufman died in New York City on January 17th, 1961.