**Originally Listed At $600**

William Franklin Draper (American, 1912-2003). Oil on canvas, 1980. Signed and dated on lower right. A formal portrait of American industrialist, Joseph Peter Grace Jr. (1913-1995), painted by legendary American portraitist William Draper. Head of a major American corporation for almost 5 decades, this snappy dresser stands in a confident manner, holding a pipe in his right hand while placing his left hand in his slacks pocket. He wears a striped navy blue and white three-piece suit with a coordinating cornflower blue and white striped dress shirt beneath the buttoned vest, a polka-dotted tie of coordinating red on navy blue, a white pocket square that matches his collar and the cuffs of his dress shirt, and gold cufflinks. Presenting with a charming countenance, he looks out at the viewer with big blue eyes and a disarming expression. An impressively veristic and large-scale portrait of J. Peter Grace, the CEO of W.R. Grace and Company for 48 years, by the "Dean of American portraitists" - William Draper. Size: 50" L x 33" W (127 cm x 83.8 cm)

Boston MFA Director Emeritus Peter Rathbone compared Draper's skill to that of master John Singer Sargent. Rathbone, 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.

Joseph Peter Grace Jr. belonged to a family business dynasty that was born after the Irish potato famine, when his grandfather William Russell Grace emigrated to Peru and worked as a clerk for a shipping company that harvested "guano" - bird dung used as fertilizer - on islands offshore. In 1854, William Russell Grace rose to be a partner and established W.R. Grace and Company. By 1865, he relocated to New York City and would become the first Roman Catholic mayor of the city, serving 2 terms in the 1880s and receiving the Statue of Liberty from France during his years as mayor. Following his death, his son Joseph Peter Grace Sr. became the president of the firm and also founded Grace National Bank (later known as Marine Midland Bank) as well as Grace Line passenger ship service. In addition, he formed Panagra with Pan American Airways in 1928, providing the first airline service between North and South America. J. Peter Grace Jr. would grow up on Long Island, attend Yale University from 1927 to 1932 where he earned varsity letters in three sports, and go on to work for the family business. He was appointed president of the company after his father suffered a stroke in 1945. Interested in competing with DuPont in the new technological field, Joseph Peter Grace Jr. moved Grace into the chemical sector during the 1950s and would go on to be the longest serving CEO of a public company, leading W.R. Grace & Co. for 48 years. His honors included: the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame; The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award; the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen; and the Gold Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

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

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#152321

Signed and dated by the artist on lower right. Draper Estate stamp on verso. "Grace" is handwritten on the verso as well. Painting is in overall very nice condition save minor scuffs/ wear to peripheries.