{{Short description|American contemporary realist painter (1933–2021)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Joseph Raffael | image = Portrait of Joseph Raffael.jpg | caption = Joseph Raffael - 2013 | birth_name = Joe Raffaele | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1933|2|22}} | birth_place = Brooklyn, NY, United States | death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|07|12|1933|02|22|df=yes}} | death_place = Cagnes-sur-Mer | spouse = Lannis Raffael | awards = 1974: First Prize, Tokyo International Biennial, Japan | patrons = | website = [http://josephraffael.com/ josephraffael.com] | field = Painting Watercolor | training = Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art Yale School of Art | works = {{plainlist| *{{Nowrap|''Moving Toward the Light II'' (2016)}} *''Blossoms and Sky'' (2008) *''Renewal'' (1995) *''Blue Pond, Winter Shore'' (1977) *''Hilo'' (1975)}} }}
'''Joseph Raffael''' (born February 22, 1933 – July 12, 2021)<ref name="Museum of Outdoor Arts">{{cite web |last1=Jones |first1=Kelly |title=In Memory of Joseph Raffael |url=https://moaonline.org/in-memory-of-joseph-raffael/ |website=Museum of Outdoor Arts |access-date=9 October 2024 |language=en |date=28 October 2021}}</ref> was an American contemporary realist painter known for his large-scale watercolors.
== Early life == Raffael was born on February 22, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.<ref name="RKD Research">{{cite web |title=Raffaele, Joseph |url=https://research.rkd.nl/en/detail/https%3A%2f%2fdata.rkd.nl%2fartists%2f65428 |website=RKD Research |access-date=9 October 2024}}</ref> He was the youngest of three children and the only son of Sicilian and Swiss-Irish parents, Joseph Marino Raffaele and Cora Kaelin Raffaele.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://josephraffael.com/library/interviews/interview_hferruli.php|title=2003 interview with Helen Ferrulli for Childhoods of Artists Research Project}}</ref> He became interested in drawing at age 7, and during high school years took classes at the Brooklyn Museum.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/artist36.html|title=Watercolor Artists: Joseph Raffael|last=MacEvoy|first=Bruce|date=2015|website=Handprint}}</ref> From 1953–54, he attended Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. In the summer of 1954 he studied with Joseph Albers at the Yale Summer School, then attended Yale University where he received his BFA in 1956.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.nancyhoffmangallery.com/artist-joseph-raffael-1|title=Joseph Raffael: Autobiographical|website=Nancy Hoffman Gallery}}</ref>
== Career == In 1958, he won a Fulbright fellowship to study for two years in Florence and Rome, and began painting complexly colored watercolors of flower forms. He mounted his first New York City exhibition of his Umbrian watercolors in 1963, at the d’Arcy Galleries, while at the same time battling hepatitis from which he almost died; when he recovered, he shifted to "real life" images based on photographs.
Raffael’s work received critical praise beginning in the mid-1960s. In 1965, Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery held a one-person show of his work. In 1972, using photographs of rivers taken by the artist William Allan, he began to produce his "water painting".<ref name=":0" />
In 1973 ''Time Magazine'' published an article by Robert Hughes ''A Slice of the River{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}'', describing his water paintings.<ref name=":1" /> Hughes stated that the artist’s color-drenched canvases display “a tender virtuosity without parallel in other American figurative painting today.”<ref name=":1">{{Cite magazine|last=Hughes|first=Robert|date=1973|title=A Slice of the River|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910826,00.html|magazine=TIME}}</ref>
In 2018, Raffael collaborated with David Pagel to produce ''Talking Beauty: A Conversation Between Joseph Raffael and David Pagel about Art, Love, Death, and Creativity''. In a review of the book in the San Francisco Review of Books, it was written that, "...the joy of this book is slowly reading the interchange of ideas form the exchanged emails between these two men – comments on life, death, art and artists, writing, creativity, children, pets – all blended into a wondrous tapestry of the essence of being truly alive."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sanfranciscoreviewofbooks.com/2018/11/book-review-talking-beauty-conversation.html|title=Book Review: 'Talking Beauty: A Conversation Between Joseph Raffael and David Pagel About Art, Love, Death, and Creativity' by Joseph Raffael|language=en|access-date=2019-01-25}}</ref>"
== Personal life == alt=yellow rose for Joseph's wife, Lannis Raffael|thumb|<nowiki>''For Lannis 1944-2019'' (the artist's wife), watercolor on paper, 91.4 x 91.4 cm - 36 x 36 in. | 2019</nowiki> On May 19, 2019 his wife Lannis Wood Raffael died after a long period of health crises. Before her death, Raffael completed his painting "For Lannis: 1944–2019".{{cn|date=October 2024}}
Raffael died in Cagnes-sur-Mer at the age of 88 on July 12, 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Biography of Fine Art Watercolor Artist, Joseph Raffael|url=https://josephraffael.com/biography/|access-date=2021-07-20|website=josephraffael.com}}</ref>
==Awards== *1974 First Prize, Tokyo International Biennial, Japan<ref name="Tokyo">{{cite web |last1=Kawakita |first1=Michiaki |title=Tokyo International Biennale: New Image in Painting |url=https://specificobject.com/objects/info.cfm?object_id=10242 |website=Specific Object/David Platzker |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref> *1960 Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship{{cn|date=October 2024}} *1958 Fulbright Fellowship{{cn|date=October 2024}}
== Collections == Joseph Raffael’s paintings are in the collections of nearly 50 museums, private and public institutions, including the Oakland Museum of California,<ref name="OM">{{cite web |title=Collections search |url=https://portal.museumca.org/?f%5Bobjectname_ss%5D%5B%5D=painting&per_page=48&view=list&search_field=text&q=Joseph+Raffael |website=Oakland Museum of California |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref> the Art Institute of Chicago,<ref name="AIC">{{cite web |title=Two Fish in Dark Bubbly Water |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/186797/two-fish-in-dark-bubbly-water |website=Art Institute of Chicago |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref> the Whitney Museum of American Art,<ref name="WM">{{cite web |title=Joseph Raffael Pink Lily with Dragonfly 1981 |url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/33557 |website=Whitney Museum of American Art |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref> among other institutions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nancyhoffmangallery.com/artist/biography/1/Joseph-Raffael|title=www.nancyhoffmangallery.com|access-date=2016-06-23|archive-date=2016-05-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160505063607/http://www.nancyhoffmangallery.com/artist/biography/1/Joseph-Raffael|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Selected publications== === Books === Raffael, Joseph; Pagel, David; Erlanson, Amanda (ed.). ''Talking Beauty: A Conversation Between Joseph Raffael and David Pagel About Art, Love, Death, and Creativity'' (Zero+ Publishing, 2018); {{ISBN|978-1937222512}}
Goodman, Lanie; Dillard Stroud, Betsy; Pagel, David. ''Moving Toward the Light: Joseph Raffael'' (ACC Editions, 2015); {{ISBN|978-1851498055}}
Wallach, Amei; Kuspit, Donald. ''Reflections of Nature, Paintings by Joseph Raffael'' (Abbeyville Press, 1998); {{ISBN|978-0789202802}}
Arthur, John. ''Realists at Work: Studio Interviews and Working Methods of Ten Leading Contemporary Painters'' (Watson-Guptill Publications, 1983); {{ISBN|978-0823045105}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == *Furman, Anna. ''[https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-joseph-raffael-s-prismatic-watercolors-celebrate-the-beauty Joseph Raffael’s Prismatic Watercolors Celebrate the Beauty of the Natural World]''. Artsy, 21 Sept 2015.
*MacMillian, Kyle. ''[http://www.denverpost.com/2009/05/13/in-this-case-being-beautiful-is-enough/ In this case, being beautiful is enough]''. The Denver Post, 13 May 2009.
*[http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/artist-interviews-profiles/raffael-painting-diaries ''Joseph Raffael: Random Thoughts and Painting Diaries'']. artistsnetwork, 16 March 2009.
*Cotter, Holland. [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/25/arts/art-in-review-577332.html ''Art in Review: Joseph Raffael'']. The New York Times, 25 March 1994.
==External links== *[http://collections.lacma.org/node/166022 Joseph Raffael in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToJKcQvw8BY Joseph Raffael: How Life Affects the Paintings (video, 2020)]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Raffael, Joseph}} Category:1933 births Category:2021 deaths Category:Painters from Brooklyn Category:20th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:21st-century American painters Category:21st-century American male artists Category:20th-century American male artists