Oil, canvas; 70 x 80 cm
Signed p.d.; Jos. Kapelyan 2012
Asking price 4500
Estimate 5500 - 6000
Joseph Kapelyan
b. 1936 Belarus
He spent his early years in the war-ravaged Urals. He received his artistic education at the School of Fine Arts in Leningrad, where he studied in 1952-56. Soon after, he was drafted into the army and transferred to Kobrin located in the western part of Belarus. In the early 1960s, he decided to continue his art education. He received his diploma in Minsk in 1966. During this period he traveled extensively, visiting the Caucasus, Crimea, Kazakhstan and Finland, among others. In 1973 he visited Poland. In the early 1980s he emigrated to Israel, where he took a job as a lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology at Tel-Aviv University.
Kapelyan's art shows a desire to break away from academic restrictions and rigid rules. The artist avoids following trends or artistic schools to which belonging would mean submitting to any rigid rules of logic. He consistently seeks his own individual style. In Kapelyan's painting, critics look for a humanistic approach, as the dominant theme of his artistic expression is the state of man in the universe. The landscapes, still lifes, fantastic and mystical paintings that emerge from his brush are metaphorical representations of the desire to experience the deepest human emotions.
He is the recipient of The Nicholas Roerich International Prize
