William Franklin Draper

William Franklin Draper (December 24, 1912 – October 26, 2003) was an American painter and a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy.

Early life Draper was born in Hopedale, Massachusetts, on December 24, 1912. His father was Clare H. Draper, son of General William Franklin Draper, who served in the Civil War and later as Ambassador to Italy. Draper's mother was Mathilda Engman Draper, who was from Kentucky. The family owned the Draper Corporation once among the nation's largest manufacturer of textile looms and related machines. Draper's father was on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia when the Wall Street crash of 1929 hit, and was unable to sell stock in the company causing a significant financial loss during Draper's teenage years. As a child, Draper's was a child prodigy on the piano. He attended the Pomfret School in Connecticut and then Harvard University in 1930 to study concert piano. He subsequently changed his focus to painting and spent time in Provincetown, Massachusetts, studying with Charles Webster Hawthorne and Henry Hensche. Draper attended the National Academy of Design in New York, and the Cape Cod School of Art in Massachusetts. Following his education, he went to Spain to study briefly with Harry Zimmerman (protege of Paul Sacks), and then moved to France, where he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1937, he studied sculpture with George Demetrius, a Boston sculptor, and Jon Corbino in Rockport. Draper painted while dealing with the wind and Arctic weather, which made painting difficult, as he had to wear gloves to keep from getting frostbite.

Draper was the only artist to paint John F. Kennedy from life. In 1962, Draper flew to Palm Beach, FL, where Kennedy sat for a sketch, which Draper used as a reference for several other commissioned portraits of Kennedy, among them the Harvard University and the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution.

Throughout his career, Draper always painted landscapes due to his great interest in nature. He 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.

For many years, he enjoyed teaching at the Art Students League of New York. In 1999, Draper received a lifetime achievement award from the Portrait Society of America.

Draper died on October 26, 2003, at the age of 90.