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JOSEPH RAFFAEL

Nancy Hoffman Gallery will exhibit new paintings by Joseph Raffael, opening on November 8th and continuing through December 9th 2003. The monumental Raffael watercolors are now in the gallery and available for viewing. A catalogue with essay by John Fitz Gibbon accompanies the exhibition.

Prior to his 70th year, the artist offered the viewer in his last exhibition, "Scenes from a Life," vistas into his studio, his garden, his home, an autobiography in watercolor. Now as he enters his new decade, this spirit and theme continue in two new works, Biography and Biography: Interior-Exterior, Exterior-Interior. Each watercolor depicts a different wall in the artist's studio; each juxtaposes the wall--filled with postcards of favorite paintings and painters, along with family snapshots, photos of nature (carp, flowers, whales, butterflies) and a Tibetan calendar--with nature. Interior Exterior

Joseph Raffael, Biography:Interior-Exterior,
Exterior-Interior, 2003, watercolor on paper, 50 x 72 in.
   
The abundance of Raffael's surrounding environment enters through two arched glass doors in Biography. The arched panels left and right reveal a glittering light that obscures the sea but reveals bushes, trees and flowers in his garden. In Biography: Interior-Exterior, Exterior-Interior, myriad images from art history--Tibetan mandalas, flowers, a Japanese temple, birds, a Nepalese scholar in his colorful study, and more--shine forth in brilliant palette. Arranged in no particular order, these images, spontaneously taped to the wall, ever-changing, feed the artist's mind and heart and hand. On the left of the painting, the arched glass door mirrors a bird-bedecked interior aviary, reflected on the window while outside a curtain of leaves announces springtime splendor. The watercolor shimmers as it balances personal with universal. Biography

Joseph Raffael, Biography, 2002,
watercolor on paper, 54 x 81 inches
May 2003

Joseph Raffael, May 2003, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 26 x 40 inches		 Joy

Joseph Raffael, Joy, 2002,
watercolor on paper, 40 x 26 inches
 
 
Eternal Pond

Joseph Raffael, Eternal Pond, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 45 x 62 inches 		Raffael's work is synonymous with love of nature. Eternal Pond, his newest image of carp, swimming in lapis blue waters with reed grasses, takes a beloved motif to a new level. At the top of the watercolor a triangle of golden light echoes the grasses and swirling fish.
Pond

Joseph Raffael, Pond, 2002,
watercolor on paper, 54 x 81 inches 		A border echoing the jewel-like colors of the pond surrounds the piece. Unlike passages within the image, the border is rapid gestures of color, strokes of blue, red, gold that set up a musical rhythm at the edges. The swirl of carp and the dazzle of light meet equal intensity in the artist's own inner frame.
   
   
Ancient Reverie

Joseph Raffael, Ancient Reverie, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 62 x 44 inches 		Roses Reverie

Joseph Raffael, Roses Reverie, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 26 x 40 inches
   
Friendship Forest

Joseph Raffael, Friendship's Forest, 2002,
watercolor on paper, 56 x 83 inches 		Passageway, based on a photo of a forest in India, is the artist's forest primeval. Measuring 56x84 inches, it is punctuated by vertical tree trunks and limbs, a tapestry of fluttering golden-green leaves set against a silvery mauve sky. In nature, the human eye cannot grasp the shape of each leaf in a forest clearing, yet Raffael paints with his brush the sensation of a leaf covered clearing, a metaphor for the veil through which we perceive the world.
The time, the place is not important. What is important to Raffael is the essence, what the forest sounds like, smells like, looks like, as day is dawning, and this he masterfully captures. In his catalogue essay on the artist, John Fitz Gibbon writes, "You can feel in a Raffael his obsessive pursuit of every trick of light and leaf, every dancing reflection from a constantly shifting surface." Passageway

Joseph Raffael, Passageway, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 56 x 84 inches
Valley Pond

Joseph Raffael, Bali Pond, 2003,
etching on paper, 31 x 26 inches 		Raffael's method of working in watercolor is unique. He paints on a flat table with tiny brushes, working wet into dry, rarely putting color on top of color. He rolls his paper to view only 20 inches at a time and thus abstracts the image. Each passage of the work demands Raffael's full attention, yielding a work of richness in every square inch of equal intensity and energy.
Joseph Raffael was born in Brooklyn in 1933. He received his B.F.A. from Yale University in 1957 and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Florence and Rome in 1958-1959 and a Tiffany Fellowship in 1960. Mandala Bouquet

Joseph Raffael, Mandala Bouquet, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 21 x 36 inches
Spring 2003

Joseph Raffael, Spring 2003, 2003,
watercolor on paper, 45 x 63 inches 		The artist resides in France.
   
The artist's work has been exhibited in this country at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; ARCO Center for Visual Art, Los Angeles; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi; Arts Center Galleries, Old Forge, New York; Bergstrom-Mahler Museum, Neenah, Wisconsin; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The Canton Museum of Art, Ohio; City University of New York, Baruch College; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Davenport Museum of Art, Iowa; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; The Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Elvehjem Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin; Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Indiana; Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana; Gibbs Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; The Jacksonville Museum, Florida; Las Vegas Museum of Art, Nevada; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, Saint Louis; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Academy of Design, New York; Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island; Newport Harbor Art Museum, California; Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida; San Francisco International Airport, California; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Scottsdale Art Center, Arizona; Sioux City Art Center, Iowa; State University of New York, Stony Brook; Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona; Wichita Art Museum, Kansas; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin; among other institutions. His work has also been shown at the Fukui City Art Museum; Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo; Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai; Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama; Sogo Museum of Art; Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts; Tokushima Modern Art Museum; Museum of Modern Art, Shiba; and Kochi Prefectural Museum of Folk Art, all in Japan, and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan.
   
Raffael's work is represented in many museum collections, among them: Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The Canton Museum of Art, Ohio; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; The Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Des Moines Art Center, Iowa; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Jacksonville Art Museum, Florida; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Long Beach Museum, California; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida; Museum of Outdoor Art, Englewood, Colorado; National Collection of Fine Arts of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Oakland Museum, California; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Rahr West Art Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; The Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Maryland; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.