Joseph Drapell was born into the German- (and later Soviet-) occupied small town of Humpolec (near Prague) in 1940. His parents brought up their three boys not to believe in the official propaganda of the occupying regimes. Like the Czech novelist Milan Kundera, Drapell felt that life was elsewhere. Drapell escaped his birth country at his first opportunity at the age of twenty-five in order to develop his art in the free West. He landed in Halifax in 1966, grateful to Canada for accepting him. Drapell adopted an island (B-109) in Georgian Bay as his new spiritual home. The island has inspired (directly or indirectly) all his mature artistic developments to date.
Drapell's aim was to contribute to the art of painting, rather than to merely make a living as an artist. Between 1968 and 1970, he studied under various visiting artists and lecturers at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. This is where he first started to develop his compression technique as a response to the paintings of Morris Louis. He settled in Toronto in 1970. Drapell walked the streets of New York with a roll of large paintings, until he was discovered by the Robert Elkon Gallery on Madison Avenue. After three exhibitions there (and several in Toronto where he was discovered by Jared Sable of the Dunkelman Gallery), Drapell achieved his first artistic breakthrough in 1974 with the Great Spirit Paintings. Joseph divides his time between Toronto and Georgian Bay (Lake Huron).
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:
Invited to Syracuse University, N.Y., as Visiting Artist in Residence (1973)
Invited by Sir Anthony Caro to Triangle Artists’ Workshop as Guest Artist (1984)
Museum exhibition Ten Years of J.D. traveled to five museums in Canada (1984-85)
Guest Artist at Emma Lake Workshop (1988) and at The Leighton Foundation (1990)
Drapell has exhibited with New New Painters since 1991
Five cover stories: Art International (1978), artmagazine (1980), Artpost (1990), Revue K (1993), Artfocus (1999)
Museum exhibition The Deepest Layers traveled to four museums in Bohemia (1999-2001)
Drapell’s work has been shown in New York since 1971, in Europe since 1980, in Asia since 1995
Video program Quest for New Art: Painter Joseph Drapell first shown in 1996 at Eurofilm Festival, France, and at 15th International Festival, Montevideo, Uruguay in 1997
Drapell and his wife, the poet Anna Maclachlan, founded the first Museum of New New Painting in 1998 devoted to exhibiting advanced art not yet understood by the art scene
Donates works to establish the Joseph Drapell Award at York University, Toronto
Commissioned by The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir to paint on stage during their performance of Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 (Oct 2002). Works auctioned for educational charity
Drapell publishes the DVD High Stakes: Global Crisis in Art with companion text by critic Walter Klepac (Nov 2006)
Retrospective My Universe, Drapell@70 (in five installments), Museum of New New Painting, Toronto, 2010-2011 (3 catalogs published)
Monograph Joseph Drapell published in four volumes, 960 pages, size 12” x 12” (2015 Museum of New, Toronto)
Book Cosmic Woman in the Star Chamber sixty works reproduced with an introduction by Matthew Kyba, size 12” x 12” (2017 Museum of New, Toronto)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
1968 Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax
1971 Robert Elkon Gallery, New York
1971 Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto
1972 Robert Elkon Gallery, New York
1972 Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto
1973 Robert Elkon Gallery, New York
1973 Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto
1974 Jared Sable Gallery, Toronto
1975 Jared Sable Gallery, Toronto
1977 The Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto
1978 O’Reilly Galleries, New York
1979 Gallery One, Toronto
1980 Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston
1980 Meredith Long Contemporary, New York
1981 Martin Gerard Gallery, Edmonton
1982 Gallery One, Toronto
1982 Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston
1982 Meredith Long, Houston
1983 Gallery One, Toronto
1983 Galerie Elca London, Montreal
1984 Robert Kidd gallery Detroit
1984 Gallery One, Toronto
1984 Galerie Elca London, Montreal
1984 Joseph Drapell: Ten Years a survey exhibition with a catalogue traveling to five museums: Art Gallery of Windsor, Kitchener/Waterloo Art Gallery, Confederation Art Centre P.E.I., Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Koffler Art Gallery, Toronto (essay by Karen Wilkin)
1985 Gallery One, Toronto
1985 Buschlen/Movatt Associates, Vancouver
1986 J.D. at Exhibition Space at 112 Greene St., New York City (curated and catalog essay by Karen Wilkin)
1987 Mathew Scott Gallery, South Miami
1987 Eva Cohon Gallery, Chicago
1987 Gallery One, Toronto
1988 Shippee Gallery, New York The Island Paintings (catalog essay by Ken Carpenter)
1988 Gallery One, Toronto
1989 Galerie Elca London, Montreal
1989 Gallery One, Toronto The Island Paintings
1989 Kathleen Laverty Gallery, Edmonton Paintings from Emma Lake Artists’ Workshop
1990 Gallery One, Toronto 50th Birthday Exhibition: The Czech Paintings (catalog)
1991 Moore Gallery, Hamilton Several Directions in the work of Joseph Drapell
1991 Gallery One, Toronto Small Paintings from Georgian Bay
1991 Kathleen Laverty Gallery, Edmonton
1991 Canadian Art Gallery, Calgary
1991 Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton 1985-86 Works
1992 Gallery One, Toronto The Paradise Paintings
1992 Galerie Elca London, Montreal
1993 Gallery One, Toronto The “Figure” Paintings
1994 Kathleen Laverty Gallery, Edmonton Personages
1994 Galerie Dambier Masset, Paris Individuals
1994 Gallery One, Toronto Archetypal Figures
1996 Moore Gallery, Hamilton 25 Years of Joseph Drapell
1996 Kathleen Laverty Gallery, Edmonton Composers
1997 Gallery One, Toronto
1998 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto Drapell’s Art, 1970-98
1999 Moore Gallery, Toronto Joseph Drapell: Paintings and Sculptures
1999 Gallery One, Toronto Photographs of Joseph Drapell
1999 Oblastni galerie Vysociny, Jihlava, Bohemia The Deepest Layers works painted in Drapell’s birthplace, (catalog essay by Dagmar Jelinkova)
1999 Moore Gallery, Toronto Joseph Drapell at 60 (30 year retrospective)
2000 Muzeum Dr. Alese Hrdlicky, Humpolec, Bohemia The Deepest Layers
2000 Prachenske Museum, Pisek, Bohemia The Deepest Layers
2001 Galerie moderniho umeni, Roudnice, Bohemia The Deepest Layers
2001 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto Universal Images
2002 Roy Thomson Symphony Hall, Toronto Drapell paints on Stage
2002 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto Joseph Drapell Retrospective
2003 Moore Gallery, Toronto The Celestial Experiences
2005 Moore Gallery, Toronto 35 years of Drapell’s Art
2005 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto “Anti-drapell”
2006 Moore Gallery, Toronto Terrorism Quartet
2007 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The Unknown Drapells
2007 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The Great Spirit, six works from 1974
2007 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The New New Landscape
2007 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto Digital Colour Engravings
2008 Moore Gallery, Toronto Duality & Singularity
2008 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto 50 Years of Drapell’s Figures
2008 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The Great Spirit, North
2008 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The Nude and The Art of Painting
2009 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The Nude Continued
2010 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto JOSEPH DRAPELL: My Universe @ 70
2010 The Spoke Club, Toronto Georgian Bay & Joseph Drapell, November – January, 2011
2010 ART11, Montreal The Art of Joseph Drapell 25 years retrospective, November – April, 2011
2011 Museum of New New Painting, Toronto The Cosmic Woman: the Enigma of Georgian Bay, April – May, 2011
2012 Lausberg Contemporary, Toronto Eternal Return
2013 Museum of New, Toronto The Earth Quartet and the Classic Period of J.D., Inaugural Exhibition at the newly expanded Museum of New, curated by Morgan Copeman
2014 Birth of New Worlds—The Quartet Museum of New, Toronto
2015 House of Mirrors Nikola Rukaj Gallery, Toronto
2017 Cosmic Woman Museum of New, Toronto
2018 Cosmic Woman—Abstraction Museum of New, Toronto
2018 Toronto Seasons 2003 Museum of New, Toronto
2018 ORIGIN Museum of New, Toronto
2019 ORIGIN Part Two Museum of New, Toronto
2019 The Story of Striations Museum of New, Toronto
2020 Solar Variations 13th Street Gallery, St. Catharines, Ontario CANADA
2022 Joseph Drapell: Re-Inventing Landscape 13th Street Gallery, St. Catharines, Ontario CANADA
2023 Nude Ascending (Re-Inventing Figure) Museum of New, Toronto
2023 Liberty Museum of New, Toronto
2024 DRAPELL John Mann Gallery, St. Catharines, Ontario CANADA
2024 Night on the Sun James Rottman Fine Art, Toronto
2024 14 Women Museum of New, Toronto
COLLECTIONS:
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Gallery, Prague
Museum of Modern Art, Foundation Ludwig, Vienna
The Clement Greenberg Collection at Portland Museum of Art, Oregon
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Chase Manhattan Bank, New York
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla California
AT&T, New York
The Francis J. Greenberger Foundation, New York
Hines International Corporation, Boston
21st Century Master Artworks, New York
Imperial Oil Ltd
Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale
Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida
Camino Foundation, Valduz, Lichtenstein
Vaclav Havel, President of Czech Republic, Prague
Collection of Gerald Piltzer, Paris
Gallery Ism, Seoul, South Korea
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Galerie moderniho umeni, Roudnice, Bohemia
Galerie Klatovy Klenova, Bohemia
Prachenske museum, Pisek
Oblastni galerie Vysociny, Jihlava
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Edmonton Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Hamilton
Toronto-Dominion Bank
Memorial University of New Foundland
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Windsor
Chevron Standard, Calgary
Royal Bank of Canada
Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina
Shell Calgary
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick
Rothmans of Pall Mall, Canada
Westburne International industries, Montreal
Alcan Ltd, Montreal
Teleglobe, Montreal
David Mirvish Collection, Toronto
Cineplex Odeon Corp. Canada
London Reginal Art Gallery
McIntosh Gallery, University of Western Ontario, London
Red Deer College, Alberta
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Alberta
Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery, Peterborough
Canada Council, The Art Bank
University Gallery, Carleton University, Ottawa
The British Museum, London (suite of 4 etchings)
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
1971 Man and His World Montreal
1973 New Acqusitions The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
1976 Ontario Now Art Gallery of Hamilton
1976 Abstractions 21 Olympiad, Montreal travelling to Stratford Ontario and Paris and London
1977 New Abstract Art Edmonton Art Gallery (catalog)
1979 Color Abstraction Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, catalog by Kenworth Moffett, (included were Louis, Bush, Frankenthaler, Noland, Olitski, Poons and Drapell)
1980 The New Generation Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, touring Paris (The American Center), Berlin (Amerika Haus), and Lisbon (Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (curated and essay by Kenworth Moffett)
1981 Viewpoint-29x9 Art Gallery of Hamilton (catalog) touring in Canada
1981 The Heritage of Jack Bush Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa (catalog)
1981 Toronto-New York Art Toronto 81 (catalog)
1982 The Threshold of Color The Edmonton Art Gallery
1983 Update: Cranbrook Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, Detroit
1984 Triangle international Artsists’ Workshop Pine Plains, N.Y. (catalog)
1985 Abstraction x 4 Canada House, London, (curated and catalog essay by Karen Wilkin) travelling to Bonn (IFA Gallery) and Paris (The Canadian Cultural Centre)
1986 Toronto-3 Eva Cohon Gallery, Chicago
1986 Contemporary Candian Artists Wade Gallery, Los Angeles
1987 New Abstractions Shippee Gallery, New York
1991 Moffett’s Collection Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale
1991 The Big Picture Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton
1991 The New Acrylic Painters Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida
1992 The New Acrylic Painters Gallery One, Toronto
1992 New New Painting Galerie Gerald Piltzer, Paris (book-catalog, essays by Kenworth Moffett and Marcel Paquet)
1993 New New Painting Musee des Beaux Art, Charleroi, Belgium
1993 New New Painting Musee d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Nice, France
1993 New New Painting Stadtishe Galerie, Goppingen, Germany (catalog)
1993 Discovery ’93 Grand Palais, Paris
1993 New New Painting International Art Fair, Chicago
1993 Konfrontationen Museum of Modern Art, Foundation Ludwig, Vienna (catalog)
1993 New New Painting Galerie Tilly Haderek, Stuttgart
1993 New New Painting Art Cologne ’93
1994 New New Painting International Art Fair, Frankfurt
1994 New New Painting International Art Fair at the Pier, New York
1994 New New Painting Art 1994 (International Art Fair) Chicago
1994 Seda cihla (Czech artists, exile) Klatovy, Bohemia (catalog)
1994 Hidden Values Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, travelling to Ontario and Alberta
1994 New New Painting Salander-O’Reilly Gallery, New York
1994 New New Painting Gallery ISM, Seoul, (catalog)
1996 New New Painting Vanderleelie Gallery, Edmonton
1996 New New Painting Gallerie Gerald Piltzer, Paris
1996 Annual Fall Exhibition The Edmonton Contemporary Artists’ Society
1996 New New Painting Art 2000, Stamford, Connecticut (catalog, essay by Donald Kuspit)
1997 New New Painting Performing Center, Stamford, Connecticut
1997 New New Painting York College, Queens, New York
1997 New New Painting Museum of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, Florida
1997 Colors: Contrast and Cultures The Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, Conn.
1999 New New Painters Flint Institute of Art, (catalog, essay by David Carrier)
1999 New New Painters Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver
2000 New New Painters Stadthuise, Brussels
2000 New New Painters-the Real Avantgarde Armory, New York (organized by Kenworth Moffett at the site of 1913 Armory Show, catalog)
2001 New New Painters Galerie Anne Letree, Paris
2001 The Clement Greenberg Collection The Portland Art Museum. Oregon (catalog)
2001 Ten Years of New New Painters Museum of New New Painting, Toronto
2001 Tondo Rondo C.W.White Gallery, Portland, Maine
2002 New New Painters National Gallery, Prague, (large scale survey of NNP, catalog with essays of five international critics, 120 pages)
2003 Gallery Artists Moore Gallery, Toronto
2004 Gallery Artists Moore Gallery, Toronto
2005 Gallery Artists Moore Gallery, Toronto
2007 New Acrylic Abstraction Salt Lake Art Center, Utah, U.S.A.
2008 Gallery Artists Moore Gallery, Toronto
2009 Six New New Painters Museum of New New Painting, Toronto
2010 Toronto Art Fair Lausberg Contemporary, Toronto
2011 Winter Thaw Lausberg Contemporary, Toronto
2012 Toronto Art Fair Lausberg Contemporary, Toronto
2015 Nikola Rukaj Gallery Toronto
2015 Toronto Art Fair Nikola Rukaj Gallery, Toronto
2017 Twenty-Five Years of New New Painters Museum of New, Toronto
2020 Joseph Drapell & Henry Saxe 13th Street Gallery, St. Catharines, Ontario CANADA
2022 Thirty Years of New New Painters Museum of New, Toronto
PUBLIC ART:
1968 Life outdoor sculpture 12 x 65 x 6 feet, concrete and plexiglas, commissioned by Ben’s Bakery, Halifax, Nova Scotia (on Wikipedia)
1986 Film Power 7 x 25 feet, mural for Cineplex Odeon, Toronto
2009 North Wind 9.5 x 18 feet, acrylic on canvas with holographic additives, Metro Toronto Convention Centre
DRAPELL IN PRINT:
Many articles and reviews of Drapell’s art have been published. The essential essays are by Ken Carpenter (1978, 1980, 1988, 1990, 2011, 2014, 2022), Karen Wilkin (1983, 1986), Kenworth W. Moffett (2005), Roald Nasgaard (2007), Walter Klepac (2014)
2020 Nude Ascending includes an essay by Matthew Kyba