Framed, Signed Draper Portrait of Daphne Hellman, 1950

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Exceptional Antiquities, Asian, Ethnographic

By Artemis Gallery

Feb 13, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-02-13 10:00:00 2020-02-13 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Exceptional Antiquities, Asian, Ethnographic https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/exceptional-antiquities-asian-ethnographic-4848
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• Lot Description
  William Franklin Draper (American, 1912-2003). "Daphne Hellman with Harp" + study. Oil on canvas, 1950. Signed on lower left. A large portrait of Daphne Hellman, the famous jazz harpist who "lived a life of elegant rebellion". Draper painted Hellman in 3/4 view and gazing toward her left (perhaps at her music stand) while plucking the strings of her golden harp. The famous harpist is dressed in a satin gown and adorned with a triple strand of pearls and her gold wedding band. A gorgeous woman with long blonde hair, large brown doe eyes, ruby red lips, and an alabaster complexion, Hellman's beauty was oftentimes compared to that of Hollywood legend Katherine Hepburn. Accompanying the painting is Draper's study on canvas board. Draper became known as the "Dean of American portraitists" and Boston MFA Director Emeritus Peter Rathbone compared Draper's skill to that of master John Singer Sargent. (See his quote below.) Size: 40" L x 26" W (101.6 cm x 66 cm); 48.125" L x 34.125" W (122.2 cm x 86.7 cm) framed
  
  Here is an excerpt from Jason Ankeny's biography of Daphne Hellman, "Unconventional jazz harpist Daphne Hellman was born Daphne Van Buren Bayne; the granddaughter of the founder of the Seaboard National Bank, she began playing the harp at age 12 before pursuing a career as an actress, studying in New York and London and even appearing in a walk-on capacity in a Broadway production of Hamlet. Often compared physically to Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn, she also modeled for photographer Man Ray and Harper's Bazaar magazine before marrying Town & Country editor Harry Bull, with whom she had two children, the noted guitarist Sandy Bull and musician Daisy Paradis. An affair with New Yorker writer Geoffrey T. Hellman was grist for local gossip columnists, and in 1941, just hours after her divorce from Bull was finalized, she wed Hellman in Reno, NV. Taking her new husband's name, Hellman then began playing her harp professionally, making her debut at New York City's Town Hall -- because of her wealth, beauty, and social status, the performance was the subject of much media interest, and even Time magazine covered the event, calling her "as curvesome as a treble clef." In time, Hellman moved away from classical performance to jazz, beginning with an appearance at Le Ruban Bleu; in the years to follow she was a fixture of the Big Apple cabaret circuit, appearing at the Hotel New Yorker with Ving Merlin & His All-Girl Band and at Upstairs at the Downstairs with Blossom Dearie and Imogene Coca."
  
  Peter Rathbone, Director Emeritus of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, whose portrait Draper also painted stated, "Nature endowed William F. Draper with enough talents to require him to choose among them before embarking on a professional career. Yet to those who know him, it is hard to imagine that any natural bent could rival his personal endowment as a painter of portraits … Draper's painting belongs to the tradition of Sargent. Like Sargent's, his style is fluid with virtuoso brushwork as the identifying characteristic. Like Sargent, the preparation of the painting by Draper is all in the artist's eye. Unlike Sargent's detachment, Draper's understanding and love of people and his appreciations of physical subtleties are happily projected into his work. These traits are the source of the warmth and vitality of his portraiture. They are also the reasons why his portraits are fine likenesses. And it is not too much to say that something of his own vibrant personality is reflected in everything he paints." ("Portraits Period" by Portrait Brokers of America, 1990, p. 46)
  
  William Draper's career spanned seven decades and his subjects included a portrait of John F. Kennedy that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. based upon an oil sketch for which the president sat in 1962. Draper was actually the only artist who painted JFK from life. Draper showed at Knoedler, the Graham Gallery, Portraits, Inc., the Far Gallery, The Findlay Galleries (New York, NY) and the Robert C. Vose Galleries (Boston, MA). His work has been included in shows at the National Portrait Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), The National Academy of Design (New York, NY), The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, (Boston, MA) the Fogg Art Museum, (one of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA), the National Gallery, (London), Salon de la Marine (Paris) and in museums in Australia. He also taught at the Art Students League of New York, and received a lifetime achievement award from the Portrait Society of America in 1999.
  
  More on the artist's background: William Franklin Draper was born in Hopedale, Massachusetts on December 24, 1912. A child prodigy, he studied classical piano at Harvard University. He later changed his focus to fine art and studied with Charles Webster Hawthorne and Henry Hensche in Provincetown, Rhode Island. Draper also attended the National Academy of Design in New York and the Cape Cod School of Art in Massachusetts. Then he traveled to Spain and studied with Harry Zimmerman, moved on to France and attended the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. In 1937, he moved to Boston to study sculpture with George Demetrius and also studied with Jon Corbino in beautiful Rockport, Massachusetts. In 1942, Draper joined the Navy and served as a combat artist when stationed on the Aleutian Islands and in the South Pacific. He observed and painted battle scenes on Bougainville, Guam, Saipan, and other locations, as well as genre scenes of soldiers who were not engaged in combat but rather at work and at play. National Geographic magazine reproduced 25 of his war images in four issues in 1944. In 1945, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. organized a group exhibition of works by five official war artists, including Draper. That same year the Metropolitan Museum of Art included Draper in an exhibition entitled, ''The War Against Japan.'' Draper was also featured in a PBS television show about combat artists entitled, "They Drew Fire" in May of 2000. After the war, Draper opened a studio on Park Avenue in New York City and continued to not only paint, but also play classical and jazz piano.
  
  Provenance: The William F. Draper Collection, New York City, USA, acquired via descent from the late William Franklin Draper (1912-2003), an accomplished American artist whose career spanned seven decades. Known as the "Dean of American Portraiture," William Draper was the only artist to paint President John F. Kennedy from life, and his oeuvre includes marvelous landscapes from his world travels, military paintings as he was one of only seventeen Combat Artists in WWII, and portraits of illustrious individuals.
  
  All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
  
  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #152816

  Condition

  Old exhibition labels on verso. One reads, "Portraits Inc. 460 Park Avenue / New York 22 NY / No. 9 "Miss Daphne Hellman" by William F. Draper". Another reads " -- catalog Mrs. Geoffrey T. Hellman" by Wm. F. Draper." Draper Estate stamp on verso. Painting is in very good condition save some expected age wear and just a bit of waviness (very difficult to see upon first glance). Original wooden frame shows some normal age wear with scuffs and inactive insect holes, but otherwise very good. Study is on canvas board and also has Draper Estate stamp on verso. Study is in good condition save minor fraying to lower right corner and some tape on verso.
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