Derek Paul
While still a physicist, I expanded into new domains long before retirement from the University of Toronto, where I was professor for 31 years. These explorations included studies of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the dangers of plutonium, radioactive energy sources in outer space, foreign policy, climate change, the importance of male-female balance in parliaments, poverty elimination and full employment, and ecological economics. Publishing books began after my retirement with a children’s fable, “Chin”, that was beautifully illustrated by Jay Cestnik. Other self-published books: His and Her Verses, 2009, with a partner; « Love’s Labours Regained », a four-act verse play, 2017; and A Leap to an Ecological Economy, 2017, the fifth edition being ready for publication in 2024, and its translation into French. I also edited a dozen books, many as volunteer editor for Science for Peace in Toronto (1986-2000), but also for family, including, The Collected Works of Antonia Paul, Hilton House (my publishing company), 2010. The Collected Works is still available in paperback, and in a limited luxury hardcover edition. In 2016 I moved to Montreal. Hilton House then became Maison Hilton, which has issued several of the editions of A Leap… I continue to write pays and children’s books; and occasionally a paper for a conference on a subject related to the immense threat of climate change or the necessity of changing the economy into one that is sustainable.
I took up painting in oils together with my partner when the well-known Montreal artist Louis Robichaud announced his forthcoming art classes in 2016. Robichaud’s teaching gave us great satisfaction until he left Montreal four years later. I joined the visual art section of SOTH in 2018 and thus belong to both the writer’s and artist’s groups, and regret the huge distance that prevents personal contact with SOTH members. I have completed only ten works in oils, of which nine are signed and eight are included in the gallery above.
Names of paintings with time of completion + notes
1. La descente, late spring 2017 24″ X 20″ – See note below on book cover of A Leap to an Ecological Economy.
2. Akaka Falls, fall 2017 12″ X 36″
3. Harriet Brooks, early winter 1018 12″ X 24″ – Harriet Brooks was famous as McGill’s first woman master of physics.
4. Turtle Island, March 2019 12″ X 16″
5. En attendant Da Vinci, June 2019 54 cm X 74 cm – En attendant Da Vinci was painted to celebrate the election of Montreal’s first woman mayor 375 years after the City was founded. A photo of Valérie Plante (the mayoress) in a newspaper was the basis of the painting of her face and bust. The lower half of this painting is very faithful to Da Vinci’s.
6. Inspiration, August 2020 24″ X 72″ – Inspiration is a rendering of a bell tower in Montreal, which is most inspiring to drivers traveling toward it on rue St-Denis. Planning this work included six months of attempting to get the dimensions right. The attempts failed in a few details, but the picture looks better than the correct geometry would have done.
7. The Birth of Venus, April 2021 8″ X 10″ – The Birth of Venus was a sketch made to practice painting a figure that would be in the work Solitude.
8. Solitude, June 2021 36″ X 24″
A Leap to an Ecological Economy
In 2024, I sent a copy of A Leap to an Ecological Economy, 4th edition, to Pacific Book Review who run a literary competition annually. I entered it in the category Business, and it came in second in a long list of entries to that category. Pacific Book Reviews only announce first and second placements in the contests, and they call the runner-up “finalist.”
About the cover of A Leap to an Ecological Economy, and the work in oils, “La descente,” that gave rise to the book cover and the book title. La descente was my second work in my first course in painting in oils, at age 87. The teacher was a Montreal resident, and a well-known artist, alas now living in the Magdelene Islands. The title La descente implies that the dancer’s grand jeté was already coming down from the high point at which the legs were in a horizontal line. The date was 1978, and the young girl’s mother took the photo.
For more information
Visit www.derekleverpaul.ca