Jean-Francois Raffaelli

Jean-Francois Raffaelli (1850-1924) was a French painter, printmaker and sculptor. He believed that a true artist, spurred by an inner passion, should be able to express his ideas in all media. Raffaelli was primarily a painter until he created his first etching in 1876 and then devoted himself to printmaking. His graphic output included 183 prints, the finest executed in color etching and drypoint.

Raffaelli depicted a segment of humanity largely overlooked by other artists. His subject matter, the Parisian suburban landscape and its inhabitants - vagabonds, ragpickers and working class people, typified Raffaelli's theme of the common man as a symbol of alienated individualism in a modern industrial society.

Gustave Geoffrey, a renowned art critic, wrote, "Mr. Raffaelli is an artist considered to be a historian of his time. He had an unusual talent to represent things as they were in addition to showing his spirit, distinction of thought, his serenity of observation, a hidden irony and a slightly visible sentimentality. The mixture of all these qualities and his manner of being make him one of the most original masters of our time and his oeuvre will certainly impose itself in the future."

His work is represented in permanent collections in museums in Paris (Museum of Modern Art), Versailles (Clemenceau), Brussels, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Boston, Chicago, etc. Most recently (October 1999), Raffaelli has been honored with a one-man exhibition at the Marmotton Museum in Paris featuring paintings and prints.