Frank Nareau spent most of his career as a newspaper pressman, a trade he found after returning from fighting in the Korean War. It wasn’t until after he retired that he picked up an old hobby: drawing.
He taught himself to draw using just a pencil and coquille board, and he created more than 1,500 original portraits of athletes, entertainers and public figures. Now 94 years old, Nareau’s work is part of a special exhibition that opened recently at the Arizona Baseball Museum.
He came into KJZZ’s studios recently to talk to The Show about his work.
Full conversation
FRANK NAREAU: Well, baseball’s always been in my blood actually. And once I retired, I wanted to start drawing again. I had drawn earlier, but I went 25 years without doing any drawing up until 1993.
And then I got back into it. And baseball has always been my favorite sport. And I met some really, really great people along the way, major leaguers and oh, executives and whatever.
LAUREN GILGER: So you started drawing portraits, basically, of baseball players — other athletes as well, but a lot of baseball players. How did you teach yourself to do it again after 25 years of not drawing?
FRANK NAREAU: Oh, it come pretty natural, I think. I noticed some differences between the pictures I had done back in the early ’60s compared to when I got back into it in the early ’90s. So my style had changed quite a bit.
But the drawing paper that I draw on is called coquille board. It’s a stipple type surface paper, and it’s really good for getting shading effects and stuff like that.
And the reason that I really got into drawing was because of a sports artist that appeared in our daily papers back in Keene, New Hampshire.
LAUREN GILGER: Where you’re from, yeah.
FRANK NAREAU: His real name was Tom Paprocki. OK. And his signature on the on the drawings that appeared in the paper every day was just Pap, P-A-P. He was the biggest influence as far as getting sports drawings, you know.
LAUREN GILGER: So you had seen them as a kid in the paper. And wanted to do them yourself.
FRANK NAREAU: Right.
LAUREN GILGER: So you said baseball’s always been in your blood. Did you play?
FRANK NAREAU: Oh, I just sandlot baseball. But from the time I was 4 years old, I was, due to my older brother, he always listened to the Red Sox on the radio. And that got me started when I was only 4 or 5 years old.
LAUREN GILGER: Four or five years old playing baseball in the sandlot? What was your favorite position?
FRANK NAREAU: Uh, second base. I didn’t have a very good throwing arm, so I couldn’t play in the outfield. So I took up second base mostly.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. So, you’re from Keene, New Hampshire, but you came here and had an entire career — we should say, before you had this career as an artist — as a newspaper pressman at the Mesa Tribune. And we have to just talk about that for a moment because I don’t even think people probably know what a newspaper pressman is anymore.
I grew up around newspapers. My mom was a newspaper editor, so I have a sense of this. But tell us what this was like. What were you doing every day?
FRANK NAREAU: Well, I got out of the Army, and then I was looking for a job and the Claremont Daily Eagle was looking for an assistant pressman. So I took that job. And it involved mostly just making the plates that go on the huge printing presses.
LAUREN GILGER: The metal plates where you would press them down, literally press them down to print the paper every day, yeah.
FRANK NAREAU: Yeah. A friend of mine that worked at the same paper I did in New Hampshire had been out in Mesa vacationing before. And sadly enough, after I had about three or four years apprenticeship, he passed away. But he had left a notice — because he had visited Mesa before — he left a notice with the local newspaper that if there was ever an opening, he would like to do it.
When the call came in from the Mesa Tribune that they had a job opening, I told him about the situation of the guy they were really looking for who had passed away. And I said, “Is there any chance I could take the job?” And they said, “Sure. Come on out.”
So I came out to Mesa and spent 10 years there. I was six years a pressman in New Hampshire and about 10 years a pressman in Mesa.
LAUREN GILGER: I wonder what Mesa was like then. I mean, you came here so long ago and you watched the city change so much, right? Yeah. What was it like back then?
FRANK NAREAU: Oh, a lot slower. I think the population in Mesa when I arrived there was 60,000 people. And now it’s like 500,000 people. So, a lot of change, you know.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of change not just in the city, but in the world. In baseball I wonder though. Do you think you’ve seen baseball change?
FRANK NAREAU: Oh, yeah, drastically. I think today it’s so analytical that it ruins a portion of the game. A lot of people will disagree with me, but it’s not the same as it was in the ’40s and ’50s, I don’t think. There’s a big difference. Most of the stars today, I think, are looking out mostly for themselves rather than as a unit, as a team, you know.
LAUREN GILGER: Are you a D-backs fan?
FRANK NAREAU: Oh, yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, good. So tell us about some of the favorite people that you’ve drawn, some favorite portraits, some favorite subjects of yours. A lot of what you do is just the faces of the players, but you do also kind of pictures of them throwing or playing, right? Are there some some standouts for you?
FRANK NAREAU: Some of them because of the people I met along the way I really liked. I did a I did what I thought was a very good picture of Ernie Banks. And thanks to a landscaper at the old Rendezvous Park in Mesa — his name was Truck Dayton. And we became good friends, and he introduced me to Ernie Banks, who then, about three years later, introduced me to Buck O’Neil.
And I got to be friends with all of them. And year after year, Ernie Banks would come up into the stands and sit with me. So we got to be pretty friendly.
But it all started back when I was a child. I just loved baseball, you know? It mirrors life so much, failures and the successes and a lot of errors along the way, but you brush them aside and just keep going.
LAUREN GILGER: Just keep going. Is that your advice for the next generation here?
FRANK NAREAU: Oh, yeah. Yeah, don’t give up.
LAUREN GILGER: Don’t give up. All right. Frank Nareau joining us, a Korean War vet, retired newspaper pressman at the Mesa Tribune and also an artist. His work will be on display at the Arizona Baseball Museum. Frank, thank you so much for coming in studio. Thanks for telling us about your work. I appreciate it very much.
FRANK NAREAU: Thank you.
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