Jean Francois Raffaelli
(1850–)
(–1924)
Jean Francois Raffaelli
1850–1924
Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850–1924) was a French Realist painter and printmaker. His paintings often depicted people in the suburbs of Paris as a way to explore themes of alienation and individual experience in the modern city. His work was displayed in a number of important exhibitions, including the Impressionist exhibitions of 1880 and 1881 (although he himself was not an Impressionist).
Prior to becoming a painter in 1870, Raffaëlli had a passion for theatre and music. With no formal training in painting, one of his landscape paintings was accepted for one of the Salon’s exhibitions in 1870. Beginning in October 1871, Raffaëlli spent three months studying under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
From 1876 onwards, Raffaëlli began to use the people around him and the world of his time as subjects for his artwork. He showed a particular interest in peasants, ragpickers, and workers. For Raffaëlli, these figures from Paris’s suburbs, especially the ragpicker, represented individual isolation and alienation in modern Paris.
He was friends with Impressionist painter Edgar Degas who invited him to present work at the Impressionist exhibitions of 1880 and 1881. This decision, however, created tension and protest among the other Impressionists because Raffaëlli’s disproportionately large display consisted of 37 works and he was not an Impressionist artist.
In 1889, Raffaëlli won the Legion d’honneur, prompting him to switch his focus from Paris’s suburbs to a more central view of the city itself. At this time, he created some sculptures alongside his paintings, but those sculptures are now only remembered through photographs. In 1912, Raffaëlli’s work was included in the Summer Olympics’ painting event. In the years leading up to his death on February 11, 1924, making colour prints occupied much of his attention.