About the Artist
About the Artist
Pastel artist Ralph Klapis grew up in Kansas City where early in life he developed a regular habit of sketching. His mother, grandfather, aunt and uncle all engaged in professional art-making, through weaving, bookbinding, stained glass design, and painting. Ralph's professional artistic life was in classical singing, which he studied at the Conservatory of Music at University of Missouri-Kansas City. As a student he performed with Kansas City Lyric Opera. Later his opera career took him across the United States, and eventually to a long-time university career, teaching singing and performing with opera companies, orchestras and in solo recitals in the Chicago-Northwest Indiana area.
After retiring and moving back to the Kansas City area in 2016, he turned to pastel art as a full-time occupation. His teachers have included Mary Ann Pals and Mark Vander Vinne in Indiana, and Rich Hayek at the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, as well as workshops with Tom Christopher, Charles Peer, Aline Ordman, Greg Stone, and Nancie King Mertz. His work has been exhibited in juried shows in Overland Park and Merriam, Kansas and in St. Joseph and Parkville, Missouri. His solo show, Change on the Land: Nature and Works, was presented in August 2023 by the Brownville Fine Arts Association in Nebraska. He is active on the Board of the MidAmerica Pastel Society where he has shown work, made presentations, and served as Zoom-master which permitted the Society to continue regular meetings through two years of pandemic shut down. In 2024 he achieved Signature Artist status with the MidAmerica Pastel Society. In the Fall of 2026, he won the Emerging Artist Award in the MidAmerica Pastel Society's Members Online Show, "Local Colors."
As a former university teacher, he has shifted his research interests from musical topics to the history of pastel and master pastelists of the past, with a particular focus on Irving Petlin.
As a visual artist, his focus is often on the interaction of humans with nature, especially in areas where the natural world reclaims its original dominance. Frequent subjects are grain elevators, barns, abandoned factories, and other neglected urban and rural sites, as well as natural landscapes and still life subjects.
