 Photograph by Mimi Jacobs, photographer, 1971-1981. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. |
Joseph Raffael | |
| Birth Date: February 22, 1933 |
||
| Death Date: July 12, 2021 Artist Gallery |
||
| Raffael was born Joseph Raffaele in Brooklyn, New York in 1933. As a boy, he spent summers on Long Island where the water and shore so fascinated him that he drew what he observed. On Saturdays he attended the Brooklyn Museum of Art classes and later, he studied at the Cooper’s Union. Fulbright Scholarships followed a degree from Yale University to Florence and Rome. Early in his career, the painter taught at various New York and California Universities. After returning to New York from California, he studied Transcendental Meditation, experimented with drugs and changed the spelling of his name. Raffael returned to California where he lived an isolated life in San Geronimo.
“When I’m making art I’m not trying to make sense” – the answer Joseph Raffael once gave when questioned about his thoughts while painting.
In the 1960s, the painter’s subjects were inspired by nature; in the 1970s, there were liberal subjects that he destroyed after which his transcendental period followed. The 1980s were filled with the fascination of nature of Lannis’ (Raffael’s wife) studies which seem to reflect the natural world in the colors and prints of the fabrics she wears and holds.
Generally speaking, Joseph Raffael’s approach to his art is an emotional, almost religious, experience. In an interview Raffael states, “I would like to understand the silence of nature. Nature speaks a visual language. Painting does the same."
The painter is now living his dream of residing in France. In 1986, Raffael related his work to the natural environment when he stated, “I feel in my new work there’s a peace, beauty, mystery and order – a certain secret silence which appeals to me."
|
||