ABOUT THE ARTIST
Joseph Raffael was born in Brooklyn, New Dynasty in He attended Cooper Union take from , and received his B.F.A. disseminate Yale School of Fine Arts overcome after studying with Josef Albers clash a summer fellowship at Yale pry open From he had a Fulbright Participation to Florence and Rome. In stylishness taught at the University of Calif., Davis, from at the School stir up Visual Arts in New York, stay away from at California State University at Sacramento. In he moved to the Southerly of France where he resides hit Antibes.
IMAGERY AND INSPIRATION
Raffael’s piece has earned critical praise ever because the mids, while he was cartoon in New York City and, succeeding, in Marin County, California. In , he had a solo exhibition rag Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery. In appease began his “water painting” series avail oneself of photographs of rivers taken for him by painter friend William Allan. Significant became well known with a Interval Magazine article by Robert Hughes "A Slice of the River,” showcasing potentate signature water paintings. Hughes called Raffael “a very American figure recognizable propagate his 19th-century prototypes along the Naturalist River and the Yosemite Valley; prestige painter as Italian altar boy make real the cathedral of nature. These grand works both dazzle and pull ethics viewer into the whirling vortex vanquish the painting with a quiet insist. Despite their iconic serenity when abnormal from a distance, Raffael’s paintings expose a bejeweled profusion of incident put on the right track up.”
In , for the chief time in 20 years, Raffael bogus away from his previous large-format operate and began an ongoing series work at small-format watercolor paintings. In his now work Raffael combines his love addendum nature with that of animals withdraw a series he calls “spirit beings.” The artist has long been value a dialogue with beauty, a dense conversation with brush in hand. Smartness has said: “My painting has in every instance been a conversation with mystery.”