To Leonebel Jacobs [Letter 277]

Leonebel Jacobs (1883–1967) was a well-known portrait painter, who did pastel paintings of both AR and her husband in 1948. The portraits are published in the companion book to the film Ayn Rand: a Sense of Life by Michael Paxton (1998), pp. 7-8, and in the book Ayn Rand by Jeff Britting (2004), pp. 74-75. Many of Jacobs’ portraits (including those of Sinclair Lewis and H. G. Wells) were compiled into a book, Portraits of Thirty Authors (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937). AR’s copy of this book is inscribed “For Ayn Rand. The author for whom I have the greatest admiration – respect and – affection. Leonebel Jacobs. July the ninth, 1949.”

November 2, 1946 

Dear Leonebel Jacobs: 

I would like to thank you—in a way which I can’t quite express—for your letter and the things you said about me. I was awed by your reaction to me, and it made me very happy. My first impression of you was that you saw in people much more than you would ever tell them—and if this is what you saw in me, I am truly grateful.  

I am delighted with the little print of my picture. I did want to see it again, and it cheers me up when I look at it. I have shown it to my friends, Adrian and Janet Gaynor, and you would have been pleased by the compliments they expressed about your work. 

If this is only an experimental print, I am most eager, of course, to get the one which you will consider good. 

I hope very much that you will come to California again, as I don’t want to lose you. I am sorry that we will not be able to come to New York this year, but I hope to next year. 

With best wishes from Frank and me. 

Affectionately,

Ayn Rand

Mrs. Leonebel Jacobs
322 East 57th Street
New York, New York