“It’s much harder to grasp what makes painting good. It’s certainly not the ability to paint every blade of grass or every leaf on a tree...that’s only a skill. I think it is the artist’s psyche, the artist’s soul that we really cherish. But this is not an age in which the soul is very much respected.”

(Joseph Drapell 1991)

Joseph Drapell was born in 1940 in Humpolec, the Czech Republic . He came to North America in 1966, and has been living in Toronto since 1970. Drapell studied painting and sculpture from 1968 to 1970 with many visiting artists and critics at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan. He was invited to Syracuse University , N.Y. as Visiting Artist in Residence in 1973, and was invited by Anthony Caro to the Triangle Artists’ Workshop as guest artist in 1984. Drapell was also invited to be guest artist at the Emma Lake Workshop in 1988 and at the Leighton Foundation in 1990. Drapell’s work has been shown in Canada since 1968, in New York since 1971, in Europe since 1980, and in Asia since 1995.

Joseph Drapell has exhibited extensively in North America and Europe . He has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (1968), Robert Elkon Gallery, New York (1971, 1972, 1973), Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto (1971, 1973), Jared Sable Gallery, Toronto (1974, 1975), Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto (1977), O’Reilly Galleries, New York (1978), Gallery One, Toronto (1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994), Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston (1980, 1982), Meredith Long Contemporary, New York (1980), Martin Gerard Gallery, Edmonton (1981), Meredith Long & Co., Houston (1982), Galerie Elca London, Montreal (1983, 1984, 1989, 1992), Joseph Drapell, Ten Years 1973-1983, a retrospective organized by the Art Gallery of Windsor and traveling to the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Confederation Art Centre, P.E.I., the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the Koffler Art Gallery (1984/85), Robert Kidd Gallery, Detroit (1984), Buschlen/Mowatt Associates,

Vancouver (1985), Joseph Drapell, Paintings 1985-86 Greene Street, New York (1986), Mathew Scott Gallery, South Miami (1987), Eva Cohon Gallery, Chicago (1987), The Island Paintings Shippee Gallery, New York (1988), Paintings from Emma Lake Workshops Kathleen Laverty Gallery, Edmonton (1989, 1991, 1994), Several Directions In The Work Of Joseph Drapell Moore Gallery, Hamilton (1991), Canadian Art Galleries, Calgary (1991), Work of Joseph Drapell 1985-86, Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton (1991), Galerie Dambier Masset, Paris, France (1994), 25 Years Of Joseph Drapell Moore Gallery, Hamilton (1996).

Drapell has also participated in a number of group exhibitions including Man and His World Montreal (1971), New Acquisitions Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1973), Ontario Now Art Gallery of Hamilton (1976), Abstractions 21st Olympiad Montreal traveling to Stratford, Ontario and in 1977 to Paris, France and London, England (1976/77), New Abstract Art The Edmonton Art Gallery (1977), Colour Abstractions: Selections from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (1979), The New Generation: A Curator’s Choice Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York touring Paris, Berlin and Lisbon (1980), Viewpoint: Twenty-Nine By Nine Art Gallery of Hamilton (traveling-1981), The Heritage of Jack Bush Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa (1981), The Threshold Of Colour Edmonton Art Gallery (1982), Abstraction X 4 Canada House, London, England traveling to Bonn and Paris (1985), Toronto -3 Eva Cohon Gallery, Chicago (1986), Contemporary Canadian Artists Wade Gallery, Los Angeles (1986), New Abstractions Shippee Gallery, New York (1987), Moffett’s Collection Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Florida(1991), The Big Picture Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton (1991), The New Acrylic Painters Centre For The Arts, Vero Beach, Florida (1991), New New Painting - Exposition d’ete Galerie Piltzer (traveling to 55 locations in Canada, United States, Europe and Asia since 1991).

His work can be found in major museums and galleries including the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y., the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Windsor, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, London Regional Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Peterborough, Gallery Ism, Seoul, Korea, Galerie Klatovy, the Czech Republic, the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary and the British Museum, London England.