Joseph Raffael
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Joseph Raffael, 1976
Photographer: Mimi Jacobs.
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Joseph Raffael had been teaching at the University of California at Davis when Tyler invited him to make a print at Gemini GEL at the suggestion of Maurice Tuchman, then Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The lithograph Boy touching man touching upper lip was the first print Raffael made and demonstrates his skill as a draughtsman: ‘I had never done prints before, therefore drawing in black on the stone seemed a natural solution for this unexpected opportunity’.
In the image Raffael ‘intuitively combined’ the face of French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant with the found image of a boy, possibly sourced from a magazine. The spontaneity of the image is in keeping with the way that Raffael worked at the time, which he describes as ‘a kind of rebus with varied images unexpectedly finding themselves amongst other images’. The artist has associated this method of working with his studies in psychoanalysis, as well as experimentation with LSD.
Emilie Owens
Works in the Kenneth E. Tyler Collection
Chronology
1933 Born in Brooklyn, New York
1951-54 Attends the School of Art at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science, Manhattan, New York
1954 Receives Summer Fellowship and attends the Yale University Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk, Connecticut
1954-56 Studies at the Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Conneticut, and receives Bachelor of Fine Arts
1958-59 Receives Fulbright Fellowship to study in Florence and Rome, Italy
1958 First solo exhibition, Kanegis Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1959 Solo exhibition of works made during the Fulbright Fellowship, Galleria Numero, Florence
1960 Receives Louis C. Tiffany Prize
1966 Teaches at University of California, Davis
1967-69 Teaches at School of Visual Arts, New York
1967 Completes the edition of one hundred lithographs titled Boy touching man touching upper lip at Gemini GEL, Los Angeles. Changes name from Joe Raffaele to Joseph Raffael
1969 Teaches at University of California, Berkeley Included in exhibitions: Painting and sculpture today: 1969, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; Paintings from the photo, Riverside Museum, Riverside, New York
1969-73 Teaches at California State University, Sacramento
1972 Joins Nancy Hoffman’s new gallery in New York. Hoffman continues to represent Raffael to this day.
1974 Receives first prize, Tokyo International Biennial, Tokyo, Japan
1975 Receives Purchase Prize, Concours d’Antiques, Oakland Museum, California Produces, Island Magic, series of lithographs at the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque
1976 Included in travelling exhibition, America 1976, organised by the United States Department of the Interior, Washington, DC
1976-78 Included in travelling exhibition, Illusion and Reality, organised by the Australian Gallery Director’s Council, in association with the Visual Arts Board and the Australian National Gallery (now the National Gallery of Australia). The exhibition was shown in major state galleries across Australia.
1978 Solo exhibition, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California
1978-79 Travelling retrospective exhibition, Joseph Raffael – the California years, 1969 –1978, originating at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1985-86 Solo exhibition, Watercolors by Joseph Raffael, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming
1989 Included in exhibition, The natural image, Stamford Museum & Nature Center, Stamford, Connecticut
1995-96 Included in exhibition, Collector’s Show, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock
1998 Included in exhibition, Contemporary color: work on paper, Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, New Jersey
1998-99 Solo exhibition at Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio.
2021 Joseph Raffael died in France
© Tyler Graphics Ltd; revised Emilie Owens, 2007
This chronology provides an overview of selected biographical information, major solo and group exhibitions held within the artist's own lifetime.
Further Reading
NATIONAL GALLERY PUBLICATIONS
- Workshop: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, Jane Kinsman (ed.), 2015
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