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JOSEPH DRAPELL

The comprehensive four-volume monograph

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JOSEPH DRAPELL

A total of 960 pages in four hardcover volumes, each 12" x 12"

All four volumes are about painting, with the following additions:
Volume One includes biographical data and five critical essays by noted art critics;
Volume Two includes a section on the artist's photography and works on paper;
Volume Three includes a section about the artist's printmaking;
Volume Four includes a section on the artist's sculpture and an index of all reproduced works.

The Center Can Hold

The achievements of Western civilization are unique and fragile; they could disappear in a day (as we have seen during the last one hundred years). As a young man, Drapell saw the destruction of the best of the Czech intelligentsia who were not willing to serve the totalitarian regime. Being sensitive to the issues of justice, he had to suppress his outrage—he could not fight the secret police and win. After escaping and studying art in the USA, the artist undertook his long quest to contribute to the development of new art, rather than to just make a living as an artist. He dreamed of reaching the relevance of the great modern art he loved, from van Gogh to Jackson Pollock, Hofmann and Morris Louis. He dreamed of art on a high level that is accessible to anyone willing to look.

hardcover, 150 pages, 8" x 10"

RENEWAL of ART in the AGE of SEMI-ART

Drapell re-vitalizes the discipline of painting and contributes to unmasking the roots of Semi-Art and Easy Art. Edited and described by Jeremy Down.

Nude Ascending The Starcase

During the first decade of the new century, Drapell increased the 'dynamic range' of his paintings by inserting eye-piercing rhinestones in his acrylics. This reflected the wonder of seeing dark skies without the light pollution—a lost experience today. The works from 2010 to 2020 use lines of rhinestones for outlines of his Nudes, later becoming fully abstract.

90 pages, hardcover, 12" x 12"

DRAPELL paints BERNSTEIN

The story of Drapell's performance with the Toronto Symphony painting to Bernstein's Symphony No. 3 (The Kaddish Symphony) at Roy Thomson Hall. The painting was auctioned for the benefit of an educational venue.

hardcover, 58 pages, 12" x 12"

The Invisible Revolutionary

The title reflects the essay by Dr. Ken Carpenter of York University, "The Invisible Revolutionary", included here together with four other critical essays and reminiscences of Drapell's formative years and major landmarks of his career.

hardcover, 240 pages, 8" x 10"

Nine Quartets of Joseph Drapell

In this book, the artist has assembled nine of his quartets to date. The groupings give to the discipline of paintings what musicians have had for centuries: the ability to address different concepts and feelings in each of four parts. In 2012, the artist built a special large room in the Museum of New for the presentation of these monumental works.

softcover, 42 pages, 10" x 8"

The House of Mirrors

After his 2005 series called Anti-drapell, the artist produced two more groups of small works. Anti-frame was followed by Anti-field ; these two groups are covered in this publication.

hardcover, 2015, 48 pages, 12"x 12"

ORIGIN of drapell's image

An Exhibition Guide with commentary by Anna Maclachlan for ORIGIN that ran during 2018/19. This show gathered Drapell's paintings inspired by his Island B-109 in Georgian Bay. A recent refugee with no other property, Drapell secured a mortgage to own the place that became his spiritual home in 1971. The 50-year encounter with the elemental wild nature influenced all his mature work to date.

softcover, 58 pages, 8" x 10"

The Fountain of Youth

As the artist was finishing some very large works in 2019, he also enjoyed working on the small canvases at the same time. They sum up the painting experience and vigor of the 80-year-old artist, and utilize his wide artistic range, reflecting his dictum "In my art, I want just about anything to be possible, no taboos."

hardcover, 46 pages, size 8" x 10"

Laments of the World

When the work is visually successful, Drapell puts it away and takes his time to acquaint himself with the meaning and content of it.
This may seem surprising until we realize that he seldom plans his works, and uses chance to arrive at images.
This book gathers Drapell’s paintings that recall incidents of injustice and other tragedies experienced by our civilization.

84 pages, 8" x 10"

The Sun Variations

Solar observing with the special H-alpha filter can reveal surprising similarities with some of Drapell’s images from the different periods of his career.

90 pages, 8" x 10"

MUSEUM of NEW NEW PAINTING

Drapell & the Art of Autobiographical Compression

Beside older writers, this book contains Kyba's new analysis of Drapell's connections to Duchamp, Matisse, and others.

It divides his oeuvre into three stylistic sections:
1970-1983 Compression Technique
1983-2010 Striations and Reflections
2010-2020 The Nude Ascending

hardcover, 150 pages, 12" x 12", published 2022

Reinventing Landscape

by Dr. Ken Carpenter

published by 13th Street Gallery, St. Catharines, 2022