Lily Spandorf

Lily Spandorf was born around 1910 and raised in Vienna, Austria, where she was a graduate of the Vienna Academy of Arts. Spandorf continued her education in London at St. Martin’s School of Art and exhibited her paintings in both Britain and Italy.

Spandorf came to the United States in 1959 where she worked producing sketches and paintings for the Washington Post, the National Geographic magazine, and other publications. She was the in-house artist during the John F. Kennedy administration.

From 1960 to 1981, she worked for the Washington Star newspaper as a contributing artist, giving readers artistic interpretations of events such as the 1968 Democratic National Convention and White House Easter Egg Rolls.

Spandorf was known to visit Grant Rd. on weekends. Her neighborhood sketches are particularly significant because many of the buildings illustrated are no longer standing today.

Spandorf died in 2000.