Ivan Opffer, portrait artist G. B. Shaw (London, 1928); Biographical information compiled by Yvonne Opffer Conybeare from the memories of Sebastian Opffer and Jocelyn Clark. My grandfather Ivan Opffer met George Bernard Shaw and spoke with him at pubs and at parties given by and for London artists. He was personally invited by Shaw to draw a portrait in his home. When Ivan arrived at the Shaw's home, he was greeted by a woman who asked him to wait. While waiting, my grandfather noticed a photo of the adult Shaw in a boy scout uniform, and told the woman there whom he assumed to be Shaw's wife (though they were not introduced) that he found the photo rather amusing. She answered sharply that she didn't see anything amusing in it. Ivan judged the woman to be totally without humor, and waited quietly for Shaw to appear for his portrait.
Ivan Opffer's drawings can be seen in museums across the world, including both live and online at the National Portrait Gallery of London. The image of Shaw you see on the Metropolitan Playhouse brochure is from a black and white copy given to my grandmother by the National Gallery in Dublin when they purchased the original conte crayon drawing.
Biography in progress:  As I do primary research to verify and complete what my father and aunt have told me, I will be adding dates in parenthesis and adding footnotes.
Ivan Opffer (4 June, 1897 in Nyborg - 3 March, 1980 in Copenhagen) came from a distinguished and well-traveled Danish family of scholars, judges and journalists, and was raised in Mexico City, Copenhagen, and New York. Drawing and painting were his life since he was a boy attending a Brooklyn Heights grammer school, when his father (an anarchist and editor of the sole Danish-Language newspaper in the US and London at the time) was called into the headmaster's office.  Ivan's father was shown a bawdy cartoon his son had drawn of a brawl that occurred between a teacher and a classmate, resulting in the teacher's blouse being ripped open. His father looked at the drawing gravely, and then responded with "the boy has talent."  Ivan was sent to a summer camp where he met and drew with Winslow Homer, and attended The National Academy of Design, and/or the Art Student's League of New York. During WWI, he served in the camoflage corps and then transferred to Paris, Division I, where he was boxing champion and acted/sang in the canteen.  When he returned from the war,  Ivan drew for The New York Daily Sun, The Lancet, The New Masses, and free-lanced for many newspapers and journals. He and his cosmopolitan brother Emil Opffer (the Danish journalist/ships's purser who is best known as the inspiration for Hart Crane's Voyages1) threw many parties in their New York apartment attended by illustrious bohemian artists and writers of their day2.
In his mid-20's, he completed his formal studies in France at the Academie Julliard, and he was awarded the Legion of Arms after painting a portrait of a French head of state; He met his future wife there, Betty A'Beckett Chumley, grandaughter of the great Australian painters William A'Beckett and Mini Boyd A'Beckett, and cousin of Arthur Boyd. They married in France, and had their first child, Sebastian, in Brittany, then moved to London to be close to Betty's family and had their second child, Jocelyn.  Ivan supported himself as always by getting painting commissions and drawing portraits for newspapers (mostly the Telegraph), journals and books. His drawing of Yates was the first of his works to be purchased by the National Portrait Gallery, and when it was exhibited, he and Augustus John were the first living artists to have an exhibition there; When he was offered a staff position with a Danish paper, he settled his family in Copenhagen.
World War II forced the family to return to the states in the 40's. They moved to Greenwich Village, starting on W. 4th Street but finally settling at Ivan's beloved, sunny studio loft with a northern exposure at 10 E. 8th Street. There was a florist on the block who would send flowers every morning that Ivan would paint for his warm-up.  As in London and Copenhagen, he lived by portrait painting commissions and returned to doing illustrations, portraits and cartoons for The New York Daily Sun, The New Masses, The Lancet, and free-lanced with many other newspapers, journals and books, including a portrait of Helen Hayes for The New Yorker. He was a popular village personality. As in his youth, his home was frequented by artists, writers and entertainers for many late-night gatherings.  His photo hangs over the bar at The Kettle of Fish; and The Minetta Lane Tavern and McSorley's display his drawings and cartoons. He lived in the Village with his family until the 1960's, when he retired to Copenhagen, where he continued to paint daily and draw for the Danish papers until his death in 1980.
Ivan always made friends easily, and corresponded with many daring artists of his day. In London he often pub crawled with Yates and Dylan Thomas, and shared a lively correspondence with both.
Always surrounded by fellow artists and art-lovers, he was well known for his sense of fun, good humor, beautiful operatic voice, his Edwardian manners and skills as a boxer, as evidenced in his meeting in the boxing ring with Hemingway. He had refused on many occasions to box with the writer, whom he considered too amateur at the sport to square off with, however on Hemingway's insistence, they sparred. Once in the ring, Opffer was shocked when the former dealt him an illegal blow. "A gentleman never hits below the belt" he boomed, and then he knocked Hemingway out cold with a good Brooklyn punch. Hemingway never forgave him for the humiliation, but this did not stop them from corresponding, partying and drinking together. Ivan danced with Isadora Duncan at a party once, and was stunned to find she was so powerful that she could whip him around the room. Ivan and his wife were friends with the F. Scott Fitzgeralds, and the men corresponded for many years. Ivan and Betty are portrayed as a couple in The Sun Also Rises.
I hope you enjoy the drawing and its history.  Please join us at the Metropolitan Playhouse for The Devil's Disciple.
Yvonne Opffer Conybeare, Director
Notes: 1. This is common knowledge, and a quick internet search provides multiple sources, one of the most interesting includes a photo:  Modern American Poetry:  Hart Crane (1899-1932) , University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign http://www.english.uiuc.edu/english/maps/poets/a_f/crane/crane.htm, photo click here 2. Don't have the page number, but here's the book:  Chaucey, George: Gay New York: gender, culture and the making of the gay male world 1890 -1940, Basic Books, New York 1994