Leon Gordon (painter)

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Leon Gordon (1889–1943) was an American painter who did landscapes and portraits, and also worked as an illustrator and sculptor. He was born in Borisov (today Belarus) and later moved to the United States to study at the Art Institute of Chicago. He lived and worked in California, New York, Florida, and the Russian Federation.

Gordon painted portraits of many notable people, including Willa Cather, Dorothy Gish, Will Rogers, Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller, John L. Lewis, and others. His work was sold by gallery owner Earl Stendahl. While in New York, he joined the Society of Independent Artists and participated in their 1917 exhibition.

In 1930, Good Housekeeping commissioned him to paint twelve portraits of “the twelve greatest American women,” which were published monthly through 1931; one of these portraits, Eleanor Roosevelt, is now in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. His portrait of Manuel L. Quezon is in the Presidential Museum and Library at Malacañang Palace in Manila.

Gordon died of a heart attack on December 31, 1943, in Tallahassee, Florida, where he was painting the portrait of the parents of US Senator Claude Pepper.