William Draper Painting - Nude at National Academy 1933

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Ancient | Asian | Ethnographic

By Artemis Gallery

Jan 16, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-01-16 10:00:00 2020-01-16 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Ancient | Asian | Ethnographic https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/ancient-asian-ethnographic-4799
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• Lot Description
  William Franklin Draper (American, 1912-2003). "Nude at National Academy" oil on canvas, ca. 1933. Wow, wow, wow - this painting by American artist William Draper is outstanding on so many levels. The title suggests that Draper is offering the viewer a glimpse at a life drawing class at the National Academy of Design in New York City in the early 1930s. It is a remarkable composition rendered in an impressively large scale. A statuesque female nude stands before a classroom of art students who render her curvaceous figure while sitting or standing at their easels. The model holds a teal robe in both hands behind and below her derriere, as if she has just removed her garment. In addition to capturing her beautiful body, Draper has accentuated her soft flesh and elegant form with the perfect combination of light and shadow, and her carefully coiffed auburn hair - drawn back and rolled above the nape of her neck, a popular style during this period. Size: 47.25" L x 32.125" W (120 cm x 81.6 cm)
  
  To her right is a vessel placed upon a small round table covered by a white tablecloth, perhaps a still life that the students depicted in another exercise. In a way, this genre scene is akin to a "still life" - a special snapshot in time, with Draper zeroing in on this attractive model surrounded by artists at their easels - capturing a universal moment that art students all over the globe, including Draper, experienced.
  
  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.
  
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  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #151554

  Condition

  Draper Estate stamp on verso. The canvas shows some age wear with some creasing, scuffs, and areas of pigment loss as shown. The raw canvas on the peripheries has some fraying/losses that do not interfere with the composition. On the verso, "Nude at National Academy 1933" is handwritten on the upper stretcher bar. The canvas on the verso shows areas of staining, but these also do not seem to affect the painted image.
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