Baroness Minouche Shafik returned to LSE on Monday 16 September 2024 for the unveiling of her portrait by artist Valeriy Gridnev, which now hangs among the portraits of previous serving Directors, Presidents and Vice Chancellors of LSE.
Minouche Shafik served as LSE Director – later renamed President and Vice Chancellor – from 2017 to 2023. In an LSE tradition, portraits of previous Directors are hung on the walls of the Shaw Library in the Old Building. The artist Valeriy Gridnev presented his portrait to Minouche at a celebratory event hosted in the Shaw Library. The painting would hang on the left-hand wall, joining portraits of LSE Directors from 1984 to 2017: Julia Black, Craig Calhoun, Julia Black, Howard Davies, Anthony Giddens, John Ashworth and Indraprasad Gordhanbhai (IG) Patel.
Portraits of past Directors on the wall of the Shaw Library 
Minouche Shafik reacting to the unveiling of her official portrait. 
Minouche Shafik with artist Valeriy Grindev and his portrait of her 
Portrait of Minouche Shafik hanging in LSE’s Shaw Library
Minouche Shafik is an LSE alumnus, completing an MSc in Economics prior to completing her doctorate at St Anthony’s College, Oxford. In 1999 she became the youngest Vice President in the history of the World Bank. She has also worked at the UK Department for International Development and the International Monetary Fund. From 2014 to 2017 she was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. In 2014 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire and in 2020 she received a life peerage.
Valeriy Gridnev studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, where he won the prestigious Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Arts with his graduation painting, regarded as the highest honour in Russia for a young artist. Now based in London, he is best known for figurative work in oil, pastel and charcoal.
Named after LSE benefactor Charlotte Shaw, the Shaw Library was intended as a general reading library. It opened at LSE’s quarters in Cambridge during the Second World War and transferred to campus when the evacuation ended in 1945.
As well as portraits of former Directors, the Shaw Library houses portraits of Charlotte Shaw, Anne Bohm, and two of LSE’s co-founders, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and the Fabian stained glass window.
