MR. MCNAUGHT: William McNaught talking to William Draper. MR. DRAPER: Well, I had finished the sketch of the President's father and so I was going to show it to the President and they were having -- they were going out on a boat called the Fitzgerald, I mean -- MR. MCNAUGHT: The Honey Fitz. MR. DRAPER: The Honey Fitz. But then they were all having cocktails and I thought they could have been more -- the only one who really was still delighted to see me was one of the sisters. Oh, God, it was so long ago. I'm trying to think. [Audio Break.] MR. DRAPER: Eunice and Eunice finally got me a cocktail and this and that. Then I showed the picture to the President. Then they were going out for the day on the yacht, the gang, and I wasn't asked. I showed the picture and as I was leaving -- oh, and I talked to the President and said, "By the way, did you ever hear from Doug Dylan about posing for the Speed Club?" And he said, no, he never had. I said, "Well, will you?" And he said, "Why don't you come up to Hyannis Port this summer and paint me?" And then just as I was leaving he yelled, "Bill, I'll pose tomorrow for you." And then at that point Teddy Kennedy, you know, "Hey, why don't you paint me for the Owl Club." It was pretty funny, I mean, you know. And so the next day he posed for me and I -- he was worried as a matter of fact about his jowls because his face -- when I met him in Washington he really, his face had really gotten very heavy and thick because of this -- I think it was cortisone he was taking for his back or something. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, for his back. MR. DRAPER: He didn't look well. And then all the swelling had gone when I painted him. Luckily I painted him in 1962. He looked very young. Boy, did he age the next year after that. But my picture I think is one of the best I've ever done and I think I caught him really right. I have him looking almost straight ahead and he kept turning his head when I would look up to be sideward. I would -- then he would look around and I would say, "Look at me, Jack," or Mr. President. I'm sure I never said Jack. He would look around and then I could see his face full forward you see, full face. I painted him -- at the time he was in a skivvy shirt out on the patio of the house that they were -- MR. MCNAUGHT: In Palm Beach? MR. DRAPER: In Palm Beach that they had been given to live in as a Palm Beach White House. And so he posed there, but talked to Mrs. Lincoln all the time in his skivvy shirt, reading his letters and doing that, and then Salinger would come in and there was a Captain Shepard who was in the Navy I believe, in the Army. I've forgotten. He was a captain. Obviously he must have been in the Navy because he was high ranking. [Interruption to proceeding.] MR. DRAPER: Okay, now where was I? I was so rudely interrupted. MR. MCNAUGHT: You were talking about President Kennedy posing and how Pierre Salinger and some -- MR. DRAPER: They were all there. He was remarkable because he would suddenly say, "You know, Mrs. Lincoln, have you got that -- has so and so answered that letter I sent off two weeks ago?" Like that he remembered different things and she would say, "Yes, I've got the answer here," or this and that. He was very businesslike. I was very impressed. But he was in his skivvy shirt. When I finished it he said, he told me that it had to be -- I couldn't show it until clothed, that he had a tie and a coat on. Well, when I -- I did it on a small 20 x 20 foot canvas but I had plenty around. So I stretched it into a 25, 30 and painted it in after. It was all done and I had come back and I had painted in a blue suit and a Speed Club tie. Well, then I showed it to him when I finished. He was up -- I went over to the Carlyle. He was at the Carlyle Hotel and I went over and showed it to him there. He was very -- he loved it. He had Hallmark Cards reproduce it, a big picture. Well, not big, maybe 14 by 17 which he -- when he went to South America he gave it away to the head of state and I was very pleased. Then I was commissioned by the class of -- some class at Choate to give a picture of the President to Choate and he was going to come up and pose for one hour for me in my studio after I had -- LeMoyne Billings was going to come to the studio and see it. I had worked, got a professional model to sit in a chair and I got the chair over from the Carlyle Hotel, all the paraphernalia, and whipped this thing out. He was to come and sit for it. Well, LeMoyne Billings came in and looked at it and said, "Oh, Bill, this is wonderful. We don't need to do anything." He called the President up and said, "You don't have to come." I was so mad. He said, "It's fine the way it is." I had just copied the head from my picture. So the one at Choate could have been from life. The body and everything was painted from the model from life and painted in my style, and then I used my own head to block it in. I wish I had never finished it. I wish I had just blocked it in and let LeMoyne Billings see it that way then the President would have come and sat for an hour and I would have had it. Well, anyway, it turned out very well, the one at Choate. Then from that one -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Did he ever see that one? MR. DRAPER: Oh, yes. He couldn't get up to the unveiling but we all went up and he would -- he -- they had a tape of him saying I'm so sorry I can't be there in person but my voice is here and I'm so delighted to -- and said good morning, Dr. St. John and all of the, you know, and a little speech at the presentation. Of course I was up in the dais with Dr. St. John, the headmaster. Then they said, "Now we have -- the President of the United States will now speak," and then suddenly [fast talking]. The tape evidently got going too fast and so they had to turn it off and rewind it and then slow it down. They finally -- they had John Kennedy talking and saying hello to everybody in his voice. But that was very funny. It got everybody hysterical. Then the picture was hung at Choate. MR. MCNAUGHT: What happened to the first picture? Did it go to the Speed Club? MR. DRAPER: No. Oh, I'll tell you another thing. I had suddenly thought, well, why should I give this picture that I've arranged completely for -- that I had arranged and the Speed Club had done nothing. Why should I give this to the Speed Club? I'm going to keep it. So I made a replica of it and presented that to the Speed Club, which they have, but I've got the original you see. MR. MCNAUGHT: And you still have it? MR. DRAPER: Yeah. As a matter of fact Kocur [phonetic] who was alive then said, "Well, Bill" -- the Met sort of interested and Bob Hale was at the time a curator of American paintings. He was getting quite interested in buying it, not an absolute offer but they were really interested in getting it. Kocur told me, "Don't sell it to anybody. Insure it for $60,000 and keep it." Well, I've never insured it but I've kept it and I think that it's worth something but now I'll probably have to pay taxes on it. So, God, I don't know. MR. MCNAUGHT: Tell me, did you also do a portrait of the President for the National Portrait Gallery? MR. DRAPER: I did. Yes, Jackie Onassis commissioned that and I gave it -- I mean, she gave it to the -- MR. MCNAUGHT: National Portrait Gallery. MR. DRAPER: -- National Portrait Gallery. And then I also did one for the Harvard Club. MR. MCNAUGHT: Both of these after his death? MR. DRAPER: After his death you see. And so I'm delighted that I have this picture of him. You know when he was shot I knew C.D. Jackson who was one of the heads of life quite well. He had roomed with a cousin of mine, Bill Blair, at Princeton I think. I knew the Jacksons. I thought maybe I better call up and see if they could use this picture. But then I thought, well, how disrespectful, how wrong to call up like this when the President has just been shot. So I waited two or three weeks before I did it and then when I called C.D. said, "Oh, for God's sake, Bill, why didn't you let us know you had it. We could have used it. Now it's too late. Maybe Horizons might do it or American Heritage. Why don't you call them." But I called and they had already put their baby to bed they said. So it was never used at all and then the next year -- again I never thought they would all come out, every magazine with a picture of the President again the following year. So it never has gotten the publicity that it should have. But it's the only one done from life of the President except I think Elaine DeCoonan did a lot of sketches which we promised the President -- MR. MCNAUGHT: This is the only done from life? MR. DRAPER: Except Anagoni [phonetic] did one, which he despised for Time magazine. He sat an hour while he was working for Anagoni and they didn't get on. It looks -- it's a terrible picture I think. One eye looks, it's shooting off in the wrong direction. Unfortunately I had -- you know in Paris Sphere [phonetic] and Newsweek they -- in Paris Sphere they have these different things called Paris Sphere telling about people. It had William Draper is painting a picture of President Kennedy. The President is not fond of this kind of thing. What he said about the last painter, he said the last painter he should go back to painting pizzas, and that was Anagoni you see. But if you looked at it it said William Draper and then it ended up go back to painting pizzas. The way it was worded it sounded as if it was me and he was really talking -- it said the last person who he posed for he said should go back to painting pizzas. Well, I didn't like that at all. Well, the picture, the President liked it very much and of course as I said he gave it away. MR. MCNAUGHT: And that picture is not on view anyplace? MR. DRAPER: I have it in the studio. I send it to exhibition once in a while. When I have a show somewhere, like I'll have a show in Atlanta this fall, I'm going to have the President's picture down there, with the Shah of Iran, I have another one of the Shah, a sketch of the Shah that I did. Well, now, let's see, what else? I think that's -- [Audio Break.] MR. MCNAUGHT: Now you wanted to talk about painting a judge in Wilmington. MR. DRAPER: Oh, well, that's -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Who is that? MR. DRAPER: -- that's -- Judge Sutherland. MR. MCNAUGHT: Sutherland. MR. DRAPER: And this is -- I had painted this Judge Rodney before, about three -- oh, about nine months before down in Wilmington. I had a marvelous -- I mean, this office had marvelous light. It was a perfect studio and I did a very good portrait of this Judge Rodney. When it was finished this Judge Sutherland, Chief Justice Sutherland came in and looked at it, Chief Justice for Delaware. He said, "Oh, I want you to come down and paint me, Mr. Draper." And he -- and I said, "Well, I can come down next fall." He said fine and we made a date. He was a rather large man with big cheeks and sort of very white skin, skin you love to touch, like a rose. When I got down there he said -- he was -- I went in and he had his office fixed up like a studio. He said, "Well, now, Mr. Draper, good morning. Come in." I went in and he said -- I said, "What are you going to wear?" And he said, "I think -- my sister tells me I should be in a gray suit with a blue tie." And I said, "Well, fine, that sounds good to me. Why don't you go put on your gray suit," because he had a brown suit with a red tie. And he said, "Well, can't you put this brown suit gray and the tie blue?" And I said, "Well, I can but it would be very difficult and I wouldn't be able to see the colors, the changes in color. Why don't you go put on the gray suit." "It's in the country." I said, "Well, go to" -- "I'll get it this afternoon," he said. He said he would get it. So then he started out posing and I had turned him sideways so that he would -- [Interruption to proceeding.] MR. DRAPER: And I turned him sideways and I said -- and he sat there, this was on Monday morning, with his stomach -- he was looking very sort of dignified with his head turned toward me. Then he started speaking this strange language going, "Oh, di, bo, du, du." And I said, "What's that?" He said, "Don't you know?" And I said, "No." He said, "Homer of course." And I didn't know any Greek, I had never studied it. And then he decided I was an absolute imbecile. So he decided he wouldn't say anything. So he just sat there. Then I noticed as I was painting he started to go to sleep and he slept there all morning more or less. Then we had lunch or he had lunch and went and got his gray suit and he put that on in the afternoon. MR. MCNAUGHT: He did go get it? MR. DRAPER: He got it, yeah. He didn't say much of anything, just sat there, and I tried to get him to talk. He wouldn't say much. Then he would go off to sleep. Well, this all day Tuesday he posed and Wednesday morning around 11:30 I looked it and I thought, my God, even if I finish it it's going to be terrible because his stomach had rolled way out and I had just been painting what I saw more or less and this great stomach is in profile. His jowls, as his head sloped down these jowls were around his neck. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, because he was sleeping. MR. DRAPER: And so I suddenly thought, well, God, if I finish this it's terrible. So I started to scrape it out because when in doubt take it out, lift the head up. So he opened his eyes and said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I'm scraping it all out." And he said, "Well, that's rather a drastic way of waking me up, isn't it?, the funniest thing he ever said. So he said, "Now, Mr. Draper, what are you going to do? Are you going back to New York?" And I said, "No, I've got until Thursday afternoon. You told me until Thursday afternoon at 4:00 when you were going to Washington you could pose and I have all this afternoon and tomorrow." "You can't do anything then." I said, "That's up to me to decide." And so he went off for lunch and I went out to lunch. But meanwhile I talked to his secretary and I said, "Is there any way of getting the Judge's robes over from Dover?" At first I didn't say that. I said, "Is there any way of getting any robes? I think the Judge should be painted in robes." The secretary said, "Yes, I agree with you, Mr. Draper. I think that it would be much better. Because of his fat stomach you could hide everything." And so I said, "Well, let's get some." She said, "Well, unfortunately the Judge will never wear a borrowed robe, borrowed clothing, he wouldn't do it. It would have to be his own and his are in Dover." I said, "Well, what about calling up Dover? Is anybody coming over?" "Well, I'll call and see." Luckily somebody was coming over from Dover, which is about an hour's drive from Wilmington. So they were brought over. Meanwhile I went out to lunch. MR. MCNAUGHT: The Judge knew nothing about this? MR. DRAPER: No, the Judge knew nothing about this. And so I went out to lunch at the Wilmington Club and there I ran across Felix Dupont who was a friend of mind. I had painted his father and also his wife, Marka. He said, "Well, Bill, I think -- you know, I think" -- well, I had had a couple of martinis too at that point with Felix. He was telling me the Judge loved Conan Doyle and Sheila Combs. If I could get on that subject we would be all set. So when I got back he said, "Well, now, Mr. Draper, are you leaving for New York?" And I said, "No, I'm going to paint you in these robes," and I went and got these robes and held them up. He was absolutely stunned. He said, "Why I never wear" -- first he said, "I never wear borrowed clothing." And I said, "Oh, but these are yours, sir." He said, "What?" And he grabbed them and his hand shot out like [inaudible]. So the embroidered initials, he said, "These were brought over by police escort." And I said -- in a furious voice -- and I said, "No, they weren't. They were just brought over." MR. MCNAUGHT: A police escort. MR. DRAPER: And then I said, "You're mad, aren't you?" And he said, "You're God damn right I'm mad. Paint, God damn it, paint. You're too God damn temperamental." And so I said -- and he got in the robe and sat down. I said, "I'm painting as fast as I can." And I started to paint, waving the brush around, and then I said after a few minutes, "I've sort of forgotten the plot of The Speckled Band by Conan Doyle. Do you" -- "Do you mean to say you've forgotten the plot of The Speckled Band? I certainly know it. I can even recite it by heart." So he sat there for the whole afternoon and recited The Speckled Band by Conan Doyle. MR. MCNAUGHT: The entire thing, word for word? MR. DRAPER: Word for word, as if you're reading the book. And of course I was entertained the whole time and I was having a great time and he was talking. MR. MCNAUGHT: And he was into his mood. MR. DRAPER: And telling the story and talking about The Speckled Band. He went on all afternoon. Then the next morning when he got up again, in the robes, I said, "I don't know the story of the -- I've sort of forgotten The Hounds of the Baskerville." "You can't remember that? I can recite it." So he recited that and I finished the portrait Thursday afternoon around 4:00 and then he went to Washington. It was a great success. So I painted the whole thing all over the old canvas, the whole thing. I mean, let's face it it was nowhere like the way it was so the whole thing was painted new over this thing in a day- and-a-half. MR. MCNAUGHT: And he was pleased and you were pleased? MR. DRAPER: He was pleased, yes. MR. MCNAUGHT: But this must be a major part of doing a portrait is capturing the sitter in the right mood. MR. DRAPER: And the right position too. MR. MCNAUGHT: And the right position, yes. MR. DRAPER: Because I can't tell you -- MR. MCNAUGHT: I mean, it must be difficult having someone who's not being cooperative or seems not interested. MR. DRAPER: Well, then it is. It's very difficult but usually -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Or is falling asleep. MR. DRAPER: Usually I can get them interested. Now I remember years ago I was painting a man for the University Club. I've forgot his name. Well, let me think. I can think of it. He was the head of some big company here. This must have been in the 50's. He wouldn't -- he just sat there and he wouldn't pose well at all. He didn't seem interested. You see, he was a hunting, fishing person, which I knew nothing about. Then when I talked a little he could see I knew nothing about that. Then he got bored and went to sleep. I would try and make him look alert and smile you see and he would -- and he would get up and look at it and he would say, "It looks sour. It looks uninterested. It looks dopey, sleepy, and all these things." And I said, "Well, of course it does because that's the way you are. If you would only try and cheer up or try and make an effort we would get this thing done." And it dragged on. It was one of the longest times I've had, over a week. I finally called his wife and told her this will be a failure and it will drag on unless he just tries to cooperate. Because he would say to me, "That's not my problem, that's yours." And I would say, "Listen, we're in this together." MR. MCNAUGHT: He was unpleasant. MR. DRAPER: He was very unpleasant but the last -- he came in one morning smiling and said, "I understand you had a talk with my wife." And I said, "Yes, I did." And then I guess his wife was the boss because that morning he was very pleasant and I finished the portrait. It's hanging in the University Club now. I can't remember his name. MR. MCNAUGHT: That sort of thing often happens. If you get a person interested, pleasant, attentive, it must be much easier to paint. MR. DRAPER: Oh, certainly. Now -- and then I find that people will -- well, I painted Buffie Chandler. Now this is -- MR. MCNAUGHT: In Los Angeles? MR. DRAPER: In Los Angeles. I wouldn't ever dream of having -- I know Jerry Zerbi [phonetic] wanted to put this in when he was writing Mr. Knickerbocker's column. I told him the story on the condition it was off the record and he said, "Bill, I want it for my column." So he just wrote it in the column anyway and not using any names and saying it was Sargent who had done it. Then he said, "See the publicity you missed, Bill, by not telling me." Well, I'll tell you the story. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, good. MR. DRAPER: She came from Los Angeles to pose and this was for the music center. She had raised $18 million for her music center was on the cover of Time magazine, et cetera. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, from the newspaper? MR. DRAPER: Yes, I painted her husband too, Norman Chandler. He's now dead. But -- and that's out in the -- it must be in the Los Angeles Times Building. She came East to pose and it was a fully length standing picture, nine feet high. The canvas was nine feet high. I had to stand on a stool to paint her face. You can imagine because to reach up there. Even when it was way down low it was very hard to get to her face. She was in a gold lame? dress, which was awful. I started out in gold because she wanted it gold and then it showed all the contours of her body, which was not that good. It was not -- it was very poor as a matter of fact, rather busty and big waisted, bigger hips. So I said we can't do it in that. I worked a day with the gold. And I said, "You ought to have a white satin dress." And she had a white satin dress that had a lot of purple. It looked like amethyst, all sort of sewed on the front by her breasts. You know, a big -- well, it was rather -- I didn't mind that, that was sort of decorative, but she had these fat arms. I said, "You've got to have a stole." She had no stole so we went off to Bergdoff Goodmans and we found this beautiful purple, royal purple stole. It must have been eight yards long and about two yards wide and it was doubled you see. She threw it around her shoulders and it reached to the floor on both sides. Part of it covered up part of her hips. It really was sensational and fun to paint you see. There were little feet sticking out of the bottom of the canvas. Then the parquet flooring, my studio was owned by Lydia Emmett and where the models stand was parquet flooring. It's the only time I ever used it. Well, I used it one other time with somebody sitting on the floor, a little girl. But she posed there and she looked very regal and looks very splendid. I was looking up. But the only trouble was again the jowls, you know. In a hard north light with light and shade they showed. They looked -- she had about four or five -- well, I may be exaggerating but it looked to me double chins, at least two, and I was trying to get them out and she was trying to get them out too and holding her head way up high. Well, then of course the proportion would change and her ears were below her chin. I said, "Put your head down," because the nose would shorten when her head went up you see. And so I would say, "Now look directly at me." And then I was trying to take them out, this was about Thursday. She got down and I had really tried to flatter her, taken out a couple and it still looked pretty good. She got down and looked at it and said, "Have I got those jowls, Bill?" And I said, "Buffie." And she said -- I finally said, "I'll have to admit, yes, you had them. I've taken out a lot. This is very flattering. I've taken out a couple of double chins any way." And then she burst into tears. I said, "Oh, Buffie, I didn't mean to upset you, but I have been trying to flatter you and I have been making this -- this is much -- go look and the mirror." And she -- well, I finally got her over there and we finished on Friday. Then she had this -- well, she went back to California. Then she wanted Mr. Dreyfus, D-r-e-y-f-u-s, who was a good friend of hers who was also like Raymond Loie [phonetic]. I think he was an inventor. MR. MCNAUGHT: An industrial designer. MR. DRAPER: An industrial designer to come in and look at it. So I met him there at the studio. He came in and looked at it and then he said, "That's terrific. That's awfully good, but I've got to call Buffie and tell her because she wants to hear." But he said, "The only thing I feel is that it may make her the laughingstock because she looks too young. She looks at least ten years younger than she is." And so I said, "Well, that doesn't matter. That's fine." And so he called her up in California and told her this. He said, "The only -- my only criticism is that it makes you look much too young. Then of course it might make you the laughingstock." Well, then she was terribly upset and wanted to fly east to have me put in the jowls. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, no. MR. DRAPER: And I said, no, I wouldn't do it because this is the way under the soft evening lights, this is the way she would appear, and I was going to leave it just the way it was, which I did, and it's been a great success. MR. MCNAUGHT: Was she pleased? She was very pleased in the end then? MR. DRAPER: Oh, she was pleased in the end, yeah. MR. MCNAUGHT: Have you often done paintings that large or is that your normal portrait size? MR. DRAPER: Oh, no, this is the biggest. That's the only full length standing figure I've ever done really. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, really? MR. DRAPER: With the feet. I've done the Shah of Iran but he ended below the knees you see. I've done people standing, but these the feet were included you see and about two feet below the feet. And Sargent would do them and I know I was in Spain with Travis Klotz [phonetic] years ago and we met this Spanish artist and all of his pictures were full length standing duchesses and this and that. He had done Franco's wife. And all those palaces there, they all had full length standing pictures. I felt -- I thought isn't it too bad nobody does it here in America. MR. MCNAUGHT: It's an interesting thing that I've never thought of. But you're absolutely right. We rarely see painted portraits that are full length. MR. DRAPER: Well, the people say they haven't room to hang it. Well, it's stupid. I could hang one right there if I took that little thing away. You could hang -- people can hang much bigger pictures than they think they can, you know, at least one 30 x 40 they could hang just as easily as one 20 x 25. MR. MCNAUGHT: Exactly. MR. DRAPER: I could hang a big one here and I have, but with the sofa here I think it's fine. MR. MCNAUGHT: So the one of Mrs. Chandler that was painted is the only one you've done. Does it hang in her music center in Los Angeles? MR. DRAPER: It hangs in the music center in -- yes, in the public hall and it looks great. I saw it two years ago. Oh, and I'll tell you talking about -- another story. This is interesting because it comes also into my being sick. Oh, maybe 15, 12 years ago, I can't remember the date, it was about that long ago, I had this commission to paint a Mrs. John A. Kennedy who was from La Hoya, California. She came east on a Sunday night and we started in Monday morning. This was in the spring at the studio. She had a leopard skin throw around her that she had shot in Africa. It was all -- it started out very well. But Monday afternoon my muscles started to hurt on my arms and particularly the deltoid. When you're trying to paint and move around it really became quite painful. So I guess Tuesday we went again and this time it was worse and my left arm hurt and my knees hurt. So at lunch we went out and had a couple of martinis and I felt fine that afternoon. I didn't feel any pain and so I went on painting. On Wednesday morning I woke up and I could hardly move. I got down to the studio and started in. Well, I was in such agony that she said, "Well, Bill, you remember yesterday when you had those martinis at lunch you felt better. Why don't you have some gin now?" So at 10:00 I started gulping down the gin and by 12:00 I couldn't practically move, not because of the gin. I was still in such pain. MR. MCNAUGHT: It wasn't working this time. MR. DRAPER: And then I went home and they called the doctor and I went to the hospital. I was in the hospital for two weeks. Then I had to have -- well, I had to stop painting for a year. I had rheumatoid arthritis and my knees swelled up and I couldn't move. I had to be lifted off -- out of a chair and out of bed. I hobbled around like -- MR. MCNAUGHT: For a full year? MR. DRAPER: For half a year anyway. I had to cancel all my appointments. They gave me gold shots and I had these gold shots once a week in my gluteus maximus, which is the big muscle in the fanny, your ass so to speak, or your cheeks. I got it more in the left cheek than the right it seems. But it's a long needle. They put it in, jabbed it in. Then this went on for a half a year and I -- all of my tendons shortened and so I could hardly -- after -- well, I couldn't lift my hands higher than this, which was just above my knee just a little bit. MR. MCNAUGHT: Did you have to be fed? MR. DRAPER: No, I could eat, I could eat. Then I finally got better. The pain went, but I had to have a massage every day. I would have this water thing in the bathtub and I had this water therapy at the hospital. I would go -- I was in terrible shape. This guy at Portraits Incorporated got it, and it was about the same time, and right today he can hardly move. MR. MCNAUGHT: Really? Your cure seems to have -- MR. DRAPER: The gold evidently worked with me. My brother evidently had it a long time ago and had the gold shots and was cured. And so my doctor, Dr. DeMartini at Presbyterian had the same thing and gold sometimes works. MR. MCNAUGHT: Gold? MR. DRAPER: It's a gold emulsion of some sort. It's very expensive. No, I'm teasing. But then it was -- well, really, literally my tendons shortened up and I finally could only get my arms when it was gone, I went into remission, up to about the level of my shoulders. Then I would lie -- that summer I would lie on my back and exercise and just pull my arms up, and oh it would hurt, until I finally could get them over my head you see like that. That went on and then in about a year I was back to painting. Just about four years ago it came back for half a year, very little, when I was painting Ambassador Annenberg, and I had to get more gold and then it went away again. MR. MCNAUGHT: How lucky you are that the cure works. MR. DRAPER: And now my hands sometimes swell up in the middle of the day. But now a year later I had figured -- she had come East, Mrs. Kennedy to pose, and she wanted a picture. I figured, well, I'll go to California and paint her out there. Barbara was invited so I had to pay for the trip going out and she would pay for her coming east. So I had to pay to go out there. We stayed with her and I painted her out there. Meanwhile her husband had been painted by Simon Ellis. We had -- this was before, maybe four years before. We had been in Capri, Barbara and I and the children, and he was being painted by Simon Ellis up there. We saw his picture you see and he knew me. So his picture was hanging up there and we wanted to have an unveiling party when I finished it, which was very good. It finally turned out well. I painted her in her house and I also did a portrait of the house, in the water standing out, looking up at the cliffs. So they put it on a Christmas card. We were having an opening, an unveiling, and I made a frame, went to the -- got this frame. I stained it and carver it to make it look really good when it was just from the wood, paper mill there, you know. Then we wanted a light for it and Mr. Kennedy's was hanging very near the window. He didn't want to move his. He was a stuffy old man. Hers was down sort of in the dark down here. We wanted to get the light off his picture and put it on hers. He was so selfish he wouldn't let us take the light off his and put it on her picture to be unveiled. Well, I was very irritated with him but the picture was a great success. Then do you know what happened afterwards? About a month or two later people would all come in the house and rave about hers and say they didn't like his at all. So he finally came and he had, commissioned me to paint him. So I painted him. Then just two years ago on the fiftieth anniversary, wedding anniversary, he commissioned me to paint her again ten years later. So that was right, about two years ago and -- so it was about 12 or 13 years ago. I had her in this ruby red gown as they called it. I painted her down in Del Ray Beach and they had a big party for their fiftieth anniversary and she was posing in a ruby -- ten years older. As a matter of fact she looked better than ten years earlier. That's another story. MR. MCNAUGHT: Did -- MR. DRAPER: And it -- oh, yes, go ahead. MR. MCNAUGHT: Another person who I know posed for you and I think more than once is Paul Mellon. MR. DRAPER: Oh, yes. MR. MCNAUGHT: Can you tell me about that? MR. DRAPER: Sure. I painted Paul -- as a matter of fact now it may sound like I'm boasting but I'm not -- five times. MR. MCNAUGHT: Five times? MR. DRAPER: Yes. I first painted him for Choate School and this was commissioned by this lady in Palm Beach who wanted to give it to the school. No one -- somebody had told me her name but it was a very difficult name and I never remembered it. I met her in Palm Beach after the picture was given and hanging and I was telling somebody I had painted Paul Mellon at this cocktail party and she was standing right next to me and she turned around and said, "Oh, are you Bill Draper? Well, I'm the donor. I was the one who gave the portrait." And so we had a good time. And it's terrible. She has a difficult name. I wish -- I could go run upstairs and look it up but I don't see -- I see -- she lives in Indianapolis or someplace and I see her very seldom. MR. MCNAUGHT: When was this first portrait that you did? MR. DRAPER: This was about five years ago. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, so fairly recently? MR. DRAPER: Quite recently, yes. I've had Kennedy's there anyway and I think that's how -- and then of course after I painted Paul Mellon there he was in robes and it was a great success for the Mellon Building. Then I also painted Seymour St. John for -- who was the headmaster for Choate. So I have quite a few. Then I've done another one for Choate of -- that Worthy Johnson gave. That's up there also. I never could quite understand that. That's a story I want to tell after I finish this. Well, then Paul Mellon liked this picture very much and he asked Bunny to come in to see it when it was finished. Bunny said, "Oh, why I think it's wonderful of Paul. Why isn't that marvelous. I didn't expect anything like this. Why, why haven't we ever gotten a hold of Bill Draper before," you see, and said exactly those words. "Oh, and I want one. I would love to have an informal one for myself." Well, that was the conversation. So a few months or maybe a year later I was commissioned by Paul to paint him for the Mellon Foundation, a small one, 25 x 30. He was in a brown suit this time holding his glasses. I got him to get contact lenses because -- well, I was talking to him and I told him I had contact lenses, which I wore at times when I wanted to look well. I always had a complex because -- I told him that story I think about the lenses anyway. MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes. MR. DRAPER: When I was 13 I had to wear glasses. None of the rest of the family did. Well, anyway, he posed the second time and that was a great success and it hangs in the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Then he later, or maybe another year went by and I was commissioned to paint -- he commissioned me to paint one for -- well, no, he said this might be for Yale University and I didn't know what he meant by Yale because I didn't know anything about the British Art Center at that time. MR. MCNAUGHT: Ah-ha. MR. DRAPER: And he said he didn't know where but he wanted me to do this one. He came again. Each time he sat for a week you see, morning and afternoon. Very good at doing that. Two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon and he wouldn't let anything stop him. I got to know him very well. This third one he was in a gray suit with red sort of checks. I don't know how to -- what do you call it, plaid, sort of a plaid suit, very good looking. As a matter of fact I liked it so much I tried to get one like it, which I finally found one. I very much like it. He posed that week and this was a -- the first picture I did was 40 x 50. The second one was 25 x 30. This was a large one. This was -- it may have bee 38 x 45. I'm not sure, but it was quite big. When I finished this he said, "Well, now you have to go see Golda Heinrichs and see about framing it." When we got over there he said, "Well, I would like to have this framed just like my sister Elsa's is in the National Gallery in Washington." And he got a sample of that, a photograph sent up and had Heinrichs carve a frame just like it. He didn't tell me where it was going but sort of jested, and then suddenly he told me that it was going to go the National Gallery. He was -- the reason he had been so hesitant about it I think -- you see he had posed for Jamie Wyeth for months, months. He told me it was -- he would have to pose all the time and he really didn't like it at all. It was for the National Gallery. The trustees of the National Gallery commissioned Jamie Wyeth to do it. As a matter of fact I've seen the picture and it's very well painted but it's a young man looking at Paul Mellon and he looks old in the first place, like when I painted my Aunt Edith. I'll have to tell -- did I tell that? I haven't told that. MR. MCNAUGHT: No. MR. DRAPER: I'll tell that. Remind me because that's important. This was a young man looking at an older man and he's looking, opening a door. The curtain is swinging. Like his father painted those curtains, you know, the beautiful one of the window open with lace curtains flying? MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, yes, of course. MR. DRAPER: Well, he has the door open and has a curtain blowing in it. Then he has Mill Wreath [phonetic] the horse up behind, although it's sort of cluttered and just -- and Paul looks as if he's opening the door and his hand is on the knob but it's hidden by the door being opened. It look as if it were cut off and it looks as if he's in great pain or sort of startled, as if he was caught opening the door. It just wasn't right. MR. MCNAUGHT: Where is the picture now? MR. DRAPER: Well, I guess Jamie Wyeth has it in his show here. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, I see. MR. DRAPER: But it hasn't been very well liked. I know -- I'm not talking down Jamie because I think he's a very good painter, but this one just -- I think mine was much better naturally and so did Paul Mellon because it was sent down and Jamie's was taken down and mine was put up in the National Gallery and there it hangs and right with his sister Elsa on one side and then I'm delighted because it has Sargent's and Hawkins, very good painters there. It's in the Founder's Room. MR. MCNAUGHT: Marvelous. MR. DRAPER: And so after that evidently the class of '29 wanted to give a portrait through the British Arts Center, a picture of Paul, because he had donated the building and his paintings. They got in touch with Paul and said we want to give a portrait in your honor of you to the -- MR. MCNAUGHT: To hang in the British Arts Center. MR. DRAPER: -- to hang in the British Arts Center. And he said fine, he would love it, he said, but I would like to have William Draper paint me and told them. So they commissioned to paint him. So I painted him. He came around last year for another week and he had this -- people wonder why he's in tails and he has been criticized for that until -- and I've got, I meant to call up Ted Pillsbury and tell him to tell people when they ask why it is because somebody was up there the other day who asked and Ted Pillsbury said, well, he didn't know why I painted him in tails. That's stupid. MR. MCNAUGHT: You painted him in tails? MR. DRAPER: Yeah, I painted him in tails because Paul thought it would be fun to do it anyway, white tie and tails. He had a medal that the Queen of England had given him, the British -- the Order of the British Empire, which he wanted to hold in his hand. I thought, "That looks awfully silly, you holding the British medal in your hand. I think you should wear it." He said, "Well, I can only wear it with tails, formally." I said, "Well, put it on and wear it formally. I think that would be great." So he has it around his neck, against the white, and it makes a marvelous portrait and it has style and everything. A lot of people sort of think it looks too stuffy to have that, you know, but it got great acclaim. Well, I painted -- MR. MCNAUGHT: And you want the British Arts Center to have [inaudible]? MR. DRAPER: The what? MR. MCNAUGHT: The fact that it's on -- in the British Arts Center, the fact that he's wearing a British medal is fitting. MR. DRAPER: What did you call it, the Order, OBD? MR. MCNAUGHT: OBE. MR. DRAPER: OBE I guess. But anyway, then that was -- they had the unveiling of it. Now this is an interesting part of this whole thing. Ted Peabody is the director of the British Arts Center. MR. MCNAUGHT: Ted Pillsbury? MR. DRAPER: I mean Pillsbury, I meant -- did I say Peabody before? I said Pillsbury. MR. MCNAUGHT: You said Pillsbury. MR. DRAPER: Yeah. Well, I painted a lot of Pillsburys. I even knew his father. MR. MCNAUGHT: Out of Minneapolis. MR. DRAPER: Minneapolis. I painted Kitty Pillsbury, Ella Crosby. So I knew -- that's a slip of the tongue. You see I'm getting names all mixed up. That seems to be my failing and it would fail right now as I'm telling the story because I can't remember the name of the director of the -- or the curator of British painting on the fourth floor of the British -- his name is Malcolm. I mean of the -- I'm getting all mixed up -- of the -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Malcolm Cormack [phonetic]. MR. DRAPER: Malcolm Cormack, yes. And this is an interesting story. It hung -- when I was up for the opening of the British -- MR. MCNAUGHT: You went to see it? MR. DRAPER: I was asked -- they had 800 people at dinner and it was fantastic, delicious food. My picture -- I had flown up with Paul and brought it up earlier in his plane. We went and found -- we looked all over and we found a room on the third floor, which was sort of a lounge where people could sit. It looked very well there except it wasn't hanging there. We brought it and they said, well, this would be a good space for it. And I thought fine and I thought it would be good against -- no light on it, I mean light reflecting on it. Then I went up to the opening and I went up to the third floor and they had a bar across the door while they were serving drinks. The picture was in the room behind and it was hung too high. The holding along the room was so high that when you got in it was about -- his fanny was just a little below eye level and his head was way up near the ceiling. It didn't look right. I was terribly disappointed. I looked and I probably -- I got a drink at the bar and moved away. I didn't want to have people -- I didn't want to say to people, oh, that's fine, you know. Just like when President Kennedy's -- MR. MCNAUGHT: You had to look behind the bar into the next room? MR. DRAPER: Well, you could see it. It was in the room. Nobody could get into the room but I did get in and I fussed around and climbed in a chair to see how it looked. I had the head of the Art Center -- not the Art Center, the head of the Mellon Foundation, Jack Sawyer and his wife Anne came in. They didn't particularly like it. Then they climbed up on the sofa and looked at it and said, "Oh, Bill, it's a wonderful picture. You've got to be" -- and I said, "Well, now up here it looks just the way it did in my studio." And they said, "Well, he looks cheerful here. He has a nice smile, a twinkle. He has no twinkle down here when you look up." It was absolutely true. And so -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Fascinating. MR. DRAPER: -- everybody saw it and nobody made much comment and nobody did really see it. They all were interested in getting drinks. Just like when President Kennedy's picture was unveiled at the opening of the National Portrait Gallery, I went to that and it was in a round room, all white with a little door with a rope across it. You couldn't get in and you would look in and I looked in and saw this picture I had done of the President with this dreadful white reflection. It looked 180 years old. I looked at that and went to the other end of the place and got drunk. I didn't want to go near it or listen to what people were saying because I knew it looked so lousy. Today it looks fine because it's not hanging in that place of honor. It's hanging on another wall. MR. MCNAUGHT: The lighting and the painting in the portrait is -- MR. DRAPER: Oh, because any light across it reflects and it ruins. Like President Fusey's [phonetic] was unveiled and it was on an easel. It was hanging back at the Harvard Club and looked like a wet palette. Not a wet palette, like a wet sidewalk. It looked terrible. It had been put up this way -- MR. MCNAUGHT: You ought to make it part of your contract. MR. DRAPER: I should. Well, to go back to this picture, then the class of '29 wanted to present and therefore it wasn't unveiled at the opening of the building. So about a month ago - the building opened two months ago, about a month ago there was another dinner for 200 at the British Arts Center with Paul Mellon. MR. MCNAUGHT: In the new building? MR. DRAPER: In the new building. We had just finished -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Do you like the new building by the way? MR. DRAPER: Oh, I think it's beautiful, inside fantastic, outside, I like it outside. I think it's great. This was downstairs and where you enter. They were talking about the cement, how beautiful, they couldn't -- marvelous cement, not hanging any pictures on it you see. But my picture they wanted to bring it down and put it on an easel in the room where the dinner was you see so they could unveil it. Mr. Brewster who is now going to be the ambassador to England was there with his wife and all these dignitaries. Paul Mellon spoke. It was supposed to be put up on the easel. I came along and decided it would look better on the wall, the gray cement wall, and there were holes in the wall. So I said why not hang it up there. It will be much better than on an easel. So I got them to put it up on the wall you see. MR. MCNAUGHT: On the wall. MR. DRAPER: And it was unveiled and, oh, it was -- the enthusiasm I've heard from this picture has been amazing. That night there was a tremendous burst of applause and everybody ran up and looked at it and said how great because it was at eye level. It was the right -- MR. MCNAUGHT: It was the way it ought to have been. MR. DRAPER: The way it looked in my studio. It even looked better. And the [inaudible] I was so proud of because it looked -- it was really -- I think that's wrong with painting. It's awful for me to boast about it. MR. MCNAUGHT: Not at all. MR. DRAPER: Just that ribbon. And it doesn't interfere with the face and it comes across the right line. But let me tell you, so the next day -- oh, Eibert I had come in earlier and was going to meet Paul there to fly back to New York. MR. MCNAUGHT: This was the next day? MR. DRAPER: The next day because we were flying back to take another one I had just finished over to be framed and I'll tell you about that. And Malcolm, I saw Malcolm Karmack there and Ted Pillsbury while we were waiting in the lobby there where the picture was hanging. He came up and said, "Oh, Bill, I'm so sorry I couldn't be there at the party last night." He evidently wasn't invited or had a date or something. He said, "I'm so glad you found a temporary place for the painting, for your portrait." And I said, "Oh, I like it where it is. I don't -- this shouldn't be temporary. This should be" - And he said, "Oh, no, we can't possibly have it here. You can't hang anything on that grey cement. The architects won't like it." MR. MCNAUGHT: Where was -- where is the spot that you're talking about? MR. DRAPER: As you enter the door, as you entered -- as you go in there's a big room with plants and there's a plaque on the door here to the left and you look, you're looking into the museum. It's right there greeting you. Then there's a place where they sell pictures. MR. MCNAUGHT: There's no other art in that space? MR. DRAPER: No, there's that big -- in the middle there's a big lead sculpture. MR. MCNAUGHT: What is the sculpture? MR. DRAPER: It's -- don't ask such personal questions. Well, it's a large lead statue. I don't know who it is of. It's a beautiful thing in the middle. MR. MCNAUGHT: So there's that and your portrait? MR. DRAPER: It's right in the middle of the room and I think there may be some boxes that were taken out with trees that Bunny had put in. It's very good and mine is the only picture I think as you come in. But anyway, well, Malcolm had told that it was only temporary and it can't possibly hang there. So I went over to Ted Pillsbury and I said, "Well, Malcolm says he doesn't like it there and you like it there. You liked it -- last night you said you wanted it here." He said, "Yes, I did." Ted Pillsbury said, "Yes, I did like it there and I think it looks great. I think it should be there." And then I think he went over and discussed it with Malcolm and they were discussing it when Paul Mellon came in the door. I greeted him first. I said, "Good morning, Paul. How are you?" And he said, "The picture looks fine over there, doesn't it?" And I said, "Yes." And then I said, "But, you know, Malcolm has told me it's only temporary there and that it can't hang there because it's -- because it's going to destroy the wall surface and he wants to hang it, put up notices there instead." And Paul said, "Well, I don't see how Malcolm has any say about it at all. He's a curator of the British paintings on the third floor and it will stay there." So I felt I had won my point so I didn't say anything more and then it did stay there. So it's there now. MR. MCNAUGHT: Well, I'll see it next time I go. MR. DRAPER: Unless Malcolm is still arguing to get it out. I don't know why, I think that he had some feeling about the architecture and the gray cement was so beautiful and the architect didn't want pictures hanging on that. There's something which I think is silly because it never -- it looks wonderful against that gray cement. It just looks better than I ever thought it would really and it looked worse than I ever could imagine it could at -- MR. MCNAUGHT: At the night of the opening. MR. DRAPER: -- the night of the opening. And I've had repercussions, people have gone, busloads have gone up, you know, these charity things to go see it and people call me and say, oh, I've seen that marvelous portrait of Paul Mellon there and congratulated me. So that's fine. MR. MCNAUGHT: It's nice to have a painting hanging in that building along with all the marvelous paintings. MR. DRAPER: Oh, it is. It was such an honor with all the Gainsboroughs. MR. MCNAUGHT: [Inaudible.] MR. DRAPER: And the best picture in the place I think, there's a Rubens that's an absolutely fantastic sketch. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, maybe I'll see it. MR. DRAPER: Yes. I think that's beautiful. And then of course I love the Turner, there's a big Turner. MR. MCNAUGHT: [Inaudible] Turner. MR. DRAPER: Yes. MR. MCNAUGHT: It's the greatest Turner. It's one of the great Turners. MR. DRAPER: Well, it is a great Turner. I mean, it's fantastic. But now -- oh, and then I was going to say, talking -- oh, I haven't finished because we flew back in Paul's plane to get my painting, the fifth one that I did a month ago for the -- MR. MCNAUGHT: A month ago now or a month ago -- MR. DRAPER: Well, just MR. MCNAUGHT: -- after the opening? MR. DRAPER: The opening was only a month-and-a-half ago. MR. MCNAUGHT: I see. MR. DRAPER: We flew back to -- because he had just posed for me -- between the opening of the building and the opening of my painting he posed another time for me in New York for the Saratoga Racing Museum. In that one I had him with a black velvet cap with a visor. I don't know what -- I'm not a horseman so I don't know what you would call it, a cap, and he has a blue turtleneck sweater and a tweed coat and he's holding, he calls it a bat. It's not a baseball bat. It looks like a piece of bamboo made into a whip of some sort. So we flew back and had that brought to Heinrichs to be framed. I thought that was sort of fun, to come from one unveiling of my portrait to -- MR. MCNAUGHT: To another. MR. DRAPER: -- to fly back in his plane and then the other, another one. MR. MCNAUGHT: Is that one hanging in Saratoga now? MR. DRAPER: It will. It will be framed and hanging up there this summer I hope. I'm going to go up there sometime in August. MR. MCNAUGHT: I assume you might be getting your sixth portrait. MR. DRAPER: Yes, because I've never done the informal one for Bunny. MR. MCNAUGHT: Have you done one of her as well, are you going to do her? MR. DRAPER: No. MR. MCNAUGHT: No. MR. DRAPER: Well, now, I was talking about Jamie Wyatt's. I thought it was a good picture but he did look old and it was a little contrived because I think he's done some awfully good painting and I think he's a good portrait painter. MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes, indeed. MR. DRAPER: I admire him. But the reason I want to bring this in is that he looked old and Jamie Wyeth was young. I painted my Aunt, Mrs. Montgomery Blair, Edith Blair, my father's sister, years ago when I was about 22 and she commissioned me to paint her. "My seven children are grown up and I'm empty handed now." I had her sitting like an old lady with white hair and her one hand open on her lap, the empty hand you see, empty handed. I thought it was a terrific picture and all the children thought it was good. Mother and father saw it and said, "Oh, but William, you've made your Aunt Edith look 85 years old if a day. It's a dreadful picture." MR. MCNAUGHT: How old was she? MR. DRAPER: She was 63. MR. MCNAUGHT: Sixty-three. MR. DRAPER: One year younger than I am today and if I had painted her today she would look like a young chicken probably. She would look pretty good, you see. And Paul Mellon is about a contemporary, he's a little older, he's five years older, and he looks young. All the people -- now I'm having - well, I was going to say I'm having lunch with somebody who's 81 and he looks about 60. It's amazing. Probably to somebody who's 20 he will look 90. I probably look much older to somebody young you see. For instance to you I probably look like an old wreck. MR. MCNAUGHT: No, I think you look young. MR. DRAPER: It's not that I wasn't an old wreck. MR. MCNAUGHT: I thought that you were 64. MR. DRAPER: Sixty-four. You thought I was 24. Well, now the other thing I was going to say was about Worthy Johnson commissioned me to do this picture for Choate, so this is the fourth picture I have at Choate, of a master named -- I never did know his name because it was done through Worthy Johnson and I just had photographs. I had said I would never -- I don't like to do things from photographs which I seldom do, but he had commissioned me to do a Mr. Goldstein, a judge, if I would do this for him, a favor for him to do this one from photographs of a master at Choate, his old master at Choate. So I said, yes, I would. Well, I will tell you I did Goldstein in a week and that was fine. I worked on this other one from photographs. It was terrible. I worked on it and worked on it and it had a desk in front of him in the photograph with papers and things. I got models to pose and it was awful, a dark suit. Well, I finally gave up for a year and yet I owed him. He had paid me for both because he wanted to get it paid, do something in '75 I guess. Here I had this in my hands. I didn't want -- I had spent the money. I didn't want to pay -- have to dig in and pay him back. So I worked on it, put it away for a year, and he would call up and ask how it was. He had seen it and he had admitted that it was pretty bad. Session 5 HOME |
