William Franklin Draper (American, 1912-2003), oil on canvas, ca. 1970, signed on lower right. A dramatic painting in which William Draper depicts a logging machine lifting a tall tree from the ground, surrounded by several felled trees. According to the Draper Estate, the artist created this painting during a period when he had painted a portrait of a timber magnate, and this composition is most likely a metaphorical statement representing his love of nature. According to his daughter, Draper painted it "as a statement of how awful the razing of the rainforest is." William Draper was a founder of the American Orchid Society as well as the American Goldfish Society, and he loved natural history. A fascinating composition set in a beautiful frame. Size of painting: 13.875" W x 10.875" H (35.2 cm x 27.6 cm) Size of frame: 15.125" W x 12.2" H (38.4 cm x 31 cm)

Interestingly, this painting was created ca. 1970, the year of the first Earth Day (April 22, 1970). Designed to raise public awareness to global environmental threats, Earth Day began as a grass-roots movement, with approximately 20 million American participants. Today, Earth Day is recognized as the dawn of the environmental movement and it is observed in approximately 200 countries across the globe.

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

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#151436

Both painting and frame are in excellent condition. Painting is signed by the artist on the lower right. Draper Estate stamp on verso. Wired for suspension and ready to display.