The Art Library

Draper was a painter of powerful and sensuous imaginative works who enjoyed considerable success around 1900. In the last 15 years his work has found a new audience, substantially increased by Simon Toll's 2003 monograph and catalogue raisonnée, which closes with the following summary of the painter's rediscovery and importance to the art of the period:

"In 2001, the centenary of the death of Queen Victoria, the Tate Gallery included Ulysses and the Sirens, The Gates of Dawn, and The Lament for Icarus in its exhibition devoted to the Victorian nude. The Julian Hartnoll Gallery hosted the second exhibition of drawings by Draper in 2001.
Herbert Draper was one of the finest painters of nudes in the last years of Victoria's reign. As we begin a new century, we are more able to reassess the prejudices and snobbery of some of the last."

We stock the three superbly-illustrated Herbert Draper catalogues from the Julian Hartnoll Gallery, with catalogue notes by Simon Toll.