1977. MR. DRAPER: Now we were talking about Mr. -- oh, about painting Mr. Goldstein and doing this other, very difficult -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes, from a photograph and it wasn't working and you had -- MR. DRAPER: And it was a lousy photograph of this uninteresting, dull looking man from my point of view from the pictures. Because when somebody poses for me -- he would have been great to pose you see for me. MR. MCNAUGHT: Working from a photograph you have no idea of that's -- MR. DRAPER: I had no idea. And Mr. Johnson came in and looked at it and admitted that it wasn't very good at that point, but I said -- he said, "But can't you do something. It's not that bad, Bill." Well, in the first place I was having -- his eyes were looking off this way from the picture and I had to turn his eyes straight at me when they were looking off, and the whole thing, there were no shadows on the side of the face. It was impossible. Then he wanted me to come up, after a year had gone by he still wanted the picture, to see the old one that was hanging there of this master that somebody had done from life. And I'll tell you who did it because this is just for historical record and I think he's a very good painter and a good friend of mind is Ray Kinsler, Everett Raymond Kinsler. He had done this and when I came in I looked at this gorgeous picture of this man. I thought it was marvelous. I though, oh, my God -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Why did the want another? MR. DRAPER: Because nobody liked this. Evidently it didn't look like the master to them, it wasn't the master. But I thought it was a terrific painting. So that even discouraged me more, to get something to look better than that up there. So I took an old sports jacket of mine and painted that and got Freddy to pose and painted that behind the desk which had a little more jazz in it. Then I fussed around and got more inspired and then I thought, well, this is all right. This might -- so I asked Mr. Johnson to come and look at that. Worthy came in and said, "That's terrific. That's going to really make that room much better, Bill." And he got some, three friends from Choate who had gone to school with him and they raved about it. Then they had an unveiling up there. They took down the other one which was, I thought was sensational really, very good, and put mine up and everybody was saying how good mine was and what are they going to do with this old one. Burn it. I thought, well, they can't burn it. I said, "Why don't you send it back to the artist?" And I said -- and they said, "We can't do that. He would be very upset." And the sister didn't want it. I don't know what they did with it. But that was so said, wasn't it? MR. MCNAUGHT: How extraordinary that no one wanted it. MR. DRAPER: And so I don't know what happened and I'm not going to tell Ray because I've done this and he would be upset and there's no reason of letting him even know it because I think he's a very good painter. Then let me see what else was it, what else was there that I wanted to say? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, why I don't remember names, wasn't that it? MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes, you did. MR. DRAPER: And it's a lousy system I have for remembering names. Every word has a color to me and this sounds crazy but it's absolutely true. I remember the colors with a person by the letters in the name. I get a color thing but it's only with the vowels. So I can get the vowels of the name perfectly but the consonants are completely unremembered. So like Steadman and Draper are almost -- except Steadman isn't quite as intense but it has an A and an E in it and Draper has an A and an E but reversed. But the A is red to me and E is yellow, and A & E together make sort of an orange color. So Steadman is sort of a deep -- just because dead man and not a -- it's sort of the color, apricot color. Draper is quite bright orange yellow you see. But Steadman, or the D or the R or the P and that doesn't exist. So when I'm introduced to somebody, like Gloria will be sort of a purple color. Gloria Steadman, purple and yellow. I can remember that but I don't remember the names. MR. MCNAUGHT: How extraordinary. MR. DRAPER: And I've only met one other person who -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Do you think the color thing every time you meet someone? MR. DRAPER: Yes, I see -- names are colors. It's sort of crazy. MR. MCNAUGHT: If I said McNaught would you think of a color? MR. DRAPER: McNaught, yeah. It's sort of purple. It's sort of a rusty purple because the A is red and the O-U is sort of a deep purple and O, O is sort of blue and U is you see. But I do -- but right away I don't -- I mix it in my mind. This thing with the color comes. That's, well, it's crazy I think. But it really throws me as far as names go, and as far as Russian names -- MR. MCNAUGHT: You're thinking color instead of -- MR. DRAPER: -- and Russian names they all have about four vowels and all end in "e", which is white to me. I is white, sort of white. It ends in white and a flash of white, Ronluski and Baronaski, and all -- it could be Kovaluski. I just do not get the names. I have to say them over and I should rhyme them with -- like my -- I tell people to remember my name by a little poem, like Draper, Draper, toilet paper. I should have -- I should think of every name like that you see. That reminds me of the same old uncle I had described earlier in the tape, not my uncle but a first cousin who was so mean. MR. MCNAUGHT: The one at the club. MR. DRAPER: At the club. MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes. MR. DRAPER: His wife -- he was running for United States Senator and I remember we all kids driving down to Hyannis Port. Along the trees we would see [Inaudible] Draper running for United States Senator and his wife had written this little jingle, which they would sing on the radio, which was perfectly pathetic. Put your vote upon the paper vote for Draper, Draper, Draper. I remember that jingle. You would hear it over the radio. He was -- well, I won't go back to him. MR. MCNAUGHT: Can you think of other people that you've painted that you might like to say something about or -- MR. DRAPER: Well, I'll tell you -- MR. MCNAUGHT: -- you had difficulties in painting? MR. DRAPER: Well, I painted Leonard Bernstein for the demonstration at the Boston Arts Festival at the museum years ago. I have that still. That's one I would like to give to the National Portrait Gallery. They would take I'm sure, an old sketch by me of Leonard Bernstein done at the Boston Arts Museum and it's sitting somewhere. I've got Carlos Mantoya too. But you can't -- as I say you only get a $20 deduction why -- maybe I should give it anyway. Let's see. Well, I've painted Daphne Hellman who is a harpist. Oh, and I'll tell you the story about that. I painted this girl Carole McDonald and she was a very pretty girl, 18 or 19. Her parents live in Hope Sound and they commissioned me to paint her. Then they went to Europe and I thought, well, hot dog, they didn't tell me what they wanted, just a big picture. So I -- she loved raising parakeets. MR. MCNAUGHT: How old was she? MR. DRAPER: Nineteen or twenty, close to twenty. And she came to the studio in a dark blue, navy blue dress with a flaring skirt and white cuffs and a white thing here, which was nifty looking. And she -- and I have to have a big green Persian pillow, what do you call those big round things stuffed that you can sit on? MR. MCNAUGHT: Ottoman? MR. DRAPER: Ottoman, yeah. And she -- I was raising parakeets here and I thought, oh, we'll make a picture out of this. And I had a little parakeet stand with steps on the floor and she was leaning on this ottoman and I had a parakeet perched on her shoulder. She was sitting on the parquet flooring you see and it looked great. The only thing that was difficult was her foot was quite small, coming out forward, it had high heels at you. When I would measure, I would measure the size of her foot. According to her head it was about -- when you -- it was 12 inches long from the heel to the toe. Well, you can imagine how big that would be. So I had to paint a small foot so it would be in proportion according to -- it was much too small but it didn't look too small, it looked all right. I painted it and the family -- and it was a big 40 by 50 canvas. It's one of the nicest things I've ever done. The family came and said, "Oh, we didn't want that. We wanted her dressed up in an evening dress. She's coming out this year. We don't want that at all. That looks like -- that's all wrong." So then they wanted me to do it again. So I started another one with her sitting in a formal Italian chair. She would sit there. She hated to pose again. She hated the second one. She said, "Do you have some tea? Will you have some tea, Mr. Draper," as if she were being a hostess pouring tea. I did that one and the family loved it and so they bought it. It was in changeable taffeta, sort of purple, lavender and pink. It was awfully pretty material. So I had that above my studio, above the mantelpiece in my studio for years. Finally somehow -- oh, she got married maybe 10 years later, 10 or 12 years later when she was probably 30, 32. Evidently the family asked her what she wanted as a wedding present and she said I want that portrait that Bill Draper did. So they came by and saw me and saw it and said, gee, that's a terrific picture. They wanted me to -- they said they would like to buy it. I said, "Well, I wouldn't dream of selling it because it makes my studio. : "Oh, you wont' sell it?" I said, "Well, there's a price." So I sold it for the price that I was charging that day for the biggest picture that I do which was 10 or 12 years later, so it was a lot more than they paid for the first one. MR. MCNAUGHT: Right. MR. DRAPER: And that wasn't highway robbery. I mean, I really wanted it myself and it was fair I feel and they were stupid enough not to have bought it in the first place, you know. And, let me think, what else could I talk about as far as portraits go? I've painted people -- I've never painted -- Paul Mellon is the one I did the most. MR. MCNAUGHT: Have you painted many other government figures? You mentioned the President. MR. DRAPER: And John Foster Dulles. MR. MCNAUGHT: You painted John Foster Dulles? MR. DRAPER: Yeah. I told you that, didn't I, about painting him, that Clarence Dylan commissioned me to paint him from photographs? MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, from photographs, not from -- MR. DRAPER: Oh, I never told this? I'll tell you. This was quite a long time ago. He had just died I think. I was commissioned to paint him and I got all this, I got his map, big world map sent up to the studio and I got his clothes and all this paraphernalia he would have on his desk. I had a picture, a lousy picture of him but it was a wonderful pose, he was leaning forward, that I was going to work from and try to make a picture of it, which I did. And then I wanted -- [inaudible] told me, "Well, why Bill, why don't you call up Kosh and write a letter to Kosh in Ottawa and he has taken pictures of John Foster Dulles and he probably would sell you a print of the head more or less in that position." So I wrote to him and he sent me back little pictures like this and I found one in exactly the right position. I've never told anybody this because I didn't publicize it because when I finished the picture everybody said how great it was and how could you do that from such a lousy snapshot. It was a beautiful head from Kosh and I used that. It was like light and shade so - But then it was done and put away for two years, two or three years because it was supposed to go to the Princeton Library of Diplomatic History. It was a large canvas, 40 by 50. About two years later I was sitting here with my wife looking at the New York Times and there on the front page was my picture of John Foster Dulles with Alan Dulles in front of it and Mrs. Dulles, President Goheen [phonetic] of Princeton who since then I've painted, and President Eisenhower. It said and the picture in the background is of the late statesman. It had been unveiled and the building unveiled out at Princeton and nobody remembered me or even sent me an invitation to the unveiling, which always happens. This happens I think quite a lot, not now because I'm -- but I've heard many times of this happening and it has happened to me quite a few times. And architects, architects and artists they always for instance put a plaque under a picture of the name of the person, a place for his death, the date, and not when he was born. Yeah, they put when he was born but never put the artist's name on the plaque at all. But now the opposite thing happened with Paul Mellon's in the National Gallery. It was sent in to be done and the plaque had William F. Draper in tremendous print and Paul Mellon in very small print. MR. MCNAUGHT: How fascinating. Was that the way they do the labels for their pictures? MR. DRAPER: For their pictures. And so I think he's changed it now, but at the time it was William F. Draper and Paul Mellon. MR. MCNAUGHT: It should be the same way as the other pictures. MR. DRAPER: So I don't know what they all are like that now. MR. MCNAUGHT: John Singer Sargent's portrait of so and so. MR. DRAPER: Yeah. MR. MCNAUGHT: So why not -- MR. DRAPER: Well, I think -- I don't know what has happened. I hope they haven't changed the plaque. He was telling somebody -- I think he was telling Malcolm about it at Yale. "Oh, we must change the plaque. Remind to do that," says he. I said, "Oh, don't. Leave it the way it is." Well, I don't -- really I MR. MCNAUGHT: Do you find it easier to paint men, or women, or children? I mean, what seems easiest? MR. DRAPER: I think they're all -- I think men and women are equally -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Now you don't have a preference? MR. DRAPER: No, I think in some cities they say, oh, Draper is a better painter of men than women and then in St. Louis I'm a better painter of women than men. It just matters who you have done more of. I used to like to do children but they really drive me nuts trying to -- I have no patience of having to look and keep them still. I used to put a little paint of red, paint on my nose, and that was a great idea because they said, "Mr. Draper, you have some paint on your nose." This is about the last minute when I wanted to get them animated and they would say that and I would say, "Oh, don't be ridiculous. I have no paint on my nose." "Oh, yes, you do. Oh, look." They were trying to tell me. I would say, "Of course I haven't. I'm a professional. I get paint on my smock but I'm not an amateur. I'd never get a piece of paint on my nose. How could I?" "Oh, but you do." And that would last for about 20 minutes. MR. MCNAUGHT: Really? MR. DRAPER: I would get them talking and animated and then I would get the nice expression. MR. MCNAUGHT: Have you painted in America much, everywhere, people from every geographic -- MR. DRAPER: I would say -- MR. MCNAUGHT: You're not mainly a New York painter. MR. DRAPER: No, I painted I would say many more out west, in Chicago. MR. MCNAUGHT: Really? MR. DRAPER: I haven't done many in Texas, any in Texas, which is very strange. MR. MCNAUGHT: It should be wide open. MR. DRAPER: Yeah, I should think it would be but I've never been to Texas. I've been to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Virginia. MR. MCNAUGHT: Pretty much the whole country. MR. DRAPER: Yeah. Tennessee, Atlanta. MR. MCNAUGHT: Have you painted -- we know you've painted in Iran. Have you painted much in Europe, commissioned portraits that is? I know you've done landscapes. MR. DRAPER: I did -- I was commissioned to paint this Mr. -- what was his name? It was --well, he has a Ch?teau Du Brant [phonetic] in Antwerp, Mr. Treglander [phonetic], and he had had this beautiful chateau in the middle of a park in Antwerp with a moat around it, a castle, and an orchid greenhouse. They changed the gardens every two weeks. They would come in, gardeners would take things out. He left it to the city when he died, but it was a beautiful spot. I painted his daughter here in America. She was -- and then he commissioned me to go over there. Then another daughter-in-law, the Countess DeVire [phonetic], I painted her over there. Then -- this has nothing to do with it but it might have, I painted Cardinal Simmons of Brussels who came over last year to pose for me. MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes, you told that story. MR. DRAPER: Did I tell -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes. MR. DRAPER: I have no idea. Maybe he had seen Mr. Treglander because that's Belgium again you see. In France, I don't think I've done anyone in France. I've gone over there to do them. MR. MCNAUGHT: You've done a lot. MR. DRAPER: I did Ambassador Annenberg. Did I tell you that? MR. MCNAUGHT: You've mentioned it in passing. MR. DRAPER: And Lee Annenberg. MR. MCNAUGHT: For the British Embassy or -- MR. DRAPER: For the British Embassy. MR. MCNAUGHT: And are those portraits still there? MR. DRAPER: Oh, yes, it's there. And I'll tell you an interesting story. All right, this is an interesting story. It's about the Kennedys again you see. Well, Rose Kennedy wanted -- when I had done this one of President Kennedy's father for the embassy, I never finished it. I don't think I've told how I finished that, how I -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, yes, and you -- I do believe you did, whether it actually ended up in Regents Park or -- MR. DRAPER: Well, you see, then I got photographs. I was doing -- I went down to paint him from a couple of color notes and then I got the photographs and I found one -- every photograph had his mouth, all the teeth, grinning from ear to ear which would have been ridiculous. I found one with his mouth closed but his eyes were crossed. I used that one and straightened the eyes, hoping they would look right. Rose liked it so she said. Oh, she looked at it and then she said she wanted 14 copies of it, color, 8 by 10's, I think they're 14 by 17, for the children, for all the family. Well, not one of them ever wrote me and said anything about it all. MR. MCNAUGHT: You made 14 - MR. DRAPER: I didn't paint them. They were reproductions. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, color reproductions. MR. DRAPER: Color reproductions for the children. I would have thought having known the Kennedys when they were given one of their father painted by me they would have -- like Pat could have written me a little note. "I love that picture of father," you know, some kind of a something. I heard nothing from any of them. So I thought, well, the picture must be a ghastly failure. So when Ambassador Annenberg asked for some material to decide whether to have me or not I sent over photographs of different people I had done, leaving out Ambassador Kennedy. When I went over there, when I got there, he was walking down the hall and I was hoping, gee I hope Ambassador Kennedy's isn't up there because that's going to ruin my chances of painting him even after I had gotten over there. He walked down the hall and then he stopped in front of me and he said, "Bill Draper, why didn't you ever send me a picture of this?" It was Ambassador Kennedy. He said, "This is -- this is really the one picture that made me decide on getting you to paint me." MR. MCNAUGHT: Really? MR. DRAPER: And isn't that interesting? And another time I -- well, this may be -- I had known Pat, she was younger but I certainly knew her in Hyannis Port. When I brought the President's picture down to show old Ambassador Kennedy down in -- Jack said, "Oh, do go down and show this to father. He's at the rehabilitation center down at 23rd Street." So I went down one day to show the picture to the old man that I had finished -- no, Jack's picture and he had a stroke you see. MR. MCNAUGHT: Was it in New York or Palm Beach? MR. DRAPER: He was up in New York having treatment and I had put the coat on so Jack wanted me to show it to him. I went down and there was Ted and Pat visiting him. And Pat didn't say, "Hello, Bill. How are you?" She said, "How do you do," very distant, and called me Mr. Draper all the time. And I didn't understand her doing that. I thought it was very rude because she knew me well enough, unless she just didn't -- maybe I'm so rude to people I don't remember them and maybe it's the same way, you know, except for the fact that about three years later I was at Lincoln Center and she came running across the hall at Lincoln Center at the ballet and said, "Bill, how are you?" Quite different. I said, "Hello." "I understand you have some photographs or some reproductions of my brother's portrait. I would love to have one." And I said, "Pat, I will send you one." And I wrote out to Pat Lawford, "Best wishes, William Draper." I rolled it up in a tube and sent it to her. I never got thanked, nothing. So I just -- I saw her standing in a movie line the other day and I didn't go up and say hello because I just don't -- I didn't want to give, have her give me the cold look, "Mr. Draper, how are you?" I mean, I think it's rudeness and I think they are rude. I think they have their little group and they just think they're in and they are. They were -- it used to be out. I don't -- it's sort of sour grapes, as if I have a chip on my shoulder but I really haven't. But wouldn't you be annoyed too if you had done that, you know? So I don't think I'll probably paint any more Kennedys, although really I did like Jack very much and I knew him. I like Kathleen and Joe, the old man. It is just that Pat seems so rude. I shouldn't have brought this into the thing at all. I think really she probably doesn't know who I am. I've probably changed a hell of a lot since Hyannis Port. That's the real thing and she probably thinks, she probably thinks that William Draper the artist has nothing to do with the William Draper she knew in Hyannis Port. MR. MCNAUGHT: [Inaudible.] MR. DRAPER: Well, I did. I said, "I haven't seen you since Hyannis Port." Maybe she thought I dropped in at their house for cocktails one time, but I wasn't getting -- you know you couldn't go in there too much. So I think maybe she was just as vague as Aunt Margaret with Muriel Powells [phonetic] in the elevator. That may have been it. I know that I've hurt some people's feelings by not knowing them. It's the last thing I would want to do. Maybe I'll write Pat a letter now and just say let's straighten this thing out. MR. MCNAUGHT: Is there anything else, Mr. Draper? MR. DRAPER: Well, let's see. I think we've covered about everything. Oh, yes, I wanted to tell you -- in the first place I think I did call the American Embassy the British Embassy. The painting of Ambassador Annenberg was not done for the British Embassy. MR. MCNAUGHT: Of course it was done for the American Embassy in London. MR. DRAPER: In London, yes. But I think I kept calling it the British Embassy. MR. MCNAUGHT: In Grosvenor Square or in the Ambassador's residence? MR. DRAPER: Oh, it's in Grosvenor Square. MR. MCNAUGHT: In Grosvenor Square in the embassy? MR. DRAPER: And then when I painted Mrs. Annenberg it was done for the residence and I painted that in the residence. MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, really? Tell me about that. MR. DRAPER: Well, it was quite amazing. She had -- she was -- she had great taste I would say and so did the Ambassador as far as all his paintings go, you know. MR. MCNAUGHT: They had the embassy, the residence there completely redone - MR. DRAPER: Yes MR. MCNAUGHT: -- for upwards of a $1 million. MR. DRAPER: And they had left an awful lot of beautiful things, beautiful mirrors and furniture in the residence, which I think was great of them. MR. MCNAUGHT: What do you mean, even after they left? MR. DRAPER: Yes, they kept, took the paintings naturally, all the Monets and Manets, et cetera, but they left an awful lot of very nice things there. I know they had put in this beautiful Chinese wallpaper that they had found in some castle in Ireland and put that in one of the main rooms of the residence. It was beautiful green paper with these birds, which I used in the background of these portraits. She posed in a pink satin dress holding a carnation but it was a porcelain carnation. She had it all planned. She knew how she wanted to be, which was fine, and wanted the wallpaper. Well, upstairs -- I painted it upstairs in her room that had a good north light, but I had to have a green screen behind it. I couldn't set up with everything downstairs in the beautiful room you see with the wallpaper. MR. MCNAUGHT: Sure. MR. DRAPER: So I had a terrible time. That was the hardest thing about the thing, to get the design, about the painting to get the design of the birds and the flowers and the leaves to work into a good composition behind her. MR. MCNAUGHT: Yes. MR. DRAPER: And I would bring my easel down when nobody was around paint the wallpaper. Then I would run upstairs and paint her up there to get the whole thing coordinated so that the wallpaper looked as if it were really behind her and not just stuck in. It did some doing and I was very proud of that. MR. MCNAUGHT: And it worked? MR. DRAPER: I'll tell you how it worked. She said -- and when I finished Ambassador Annenberg's in June or maybe -- it was in June I guess she said, "Oh, I love that wallpaper. It's marvelous." Then when I finished her, her portrait in November, I came back to do her, and she said -- or maybe I painted him in November. When I finished hers -- hers was 40 by 50 and his was only 32 by 40, so she said, "Oh, you know, Walter, I like mine much better than yours and it's bigger too," which is sort of fun. MR. MCNAUGHT: And that painting hangs now still in the residence at Regents Park? MR. DRAPER: His does. MR. MCNAUGHT: Hers -- MR. DRAPER: But I did another one. And hers, no, hers has been moved now. Hers -- both hers and his are now in Philadelphia. But I've done two of him you see and one does hang in the embassy -- MR. MCNAUGHT: Oh, I see. MR. DRAPER: -- you know, with Kennedy, et cetera, et cetera. MR. MCNAUGHT: I see. MR. DRAPER: And so I think we've covered everything. MR. MCNAUGHT: Well, I would like to thank you very much. MR. DRAPER: Well, I want to thank you, Bill, McNaught. It was very good. I had a great time talking to you. You are a great interviewer. MR. MCNAUGHT: Thank you. It's June 28, 1977, the end of the interview with William Draper. This transcript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with William F. Draper, 1977 May-1977 June, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution William Draper obituaries Draper Menu HOME |
