ArtistFrenchb.1943
Rolf Rafflewski
1 active items
Rolf Rafflewski was born in 1943 in Hanau am Main, Germany, to a Polish family. He started painting at twelve and held his first solo exhibition just four years later - an early trajectory that shaped everything that followed. After completing studies in graphic arts at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie in Hanau and the Werkkunstschule in Offenbach, he traveled to Paris in 1961 and never left. The city became both home and subject.
Paris gave Rafflewski his entire visual vocabulary. The Tuileries gardens, the quais along the Seine, the winding alleys of Montmartre, the facades of Les Halles - these places recur throughout his career in oils, watercolors, pastels, and above all, lithography. His palette moved between earthy naturalistic tones and soft pastels, favoring water reflections, flowering trees, and the precise geometry of Haussmann-era architecture. The mood is quiet and observational rather than dramatic.
The defining project of his working life was a series of one hundred limited-edition lithographs, each hand-signed and numbered. These prints, which treat Paris as an endless and varied subject, became the primary way collectors encountered his work internationally. In 1973, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris gave him a solo exhibition - unusual recognition for a printmaker still in his thirties - which established his standing in France and drew attention from galleries in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere.
Over subsequent decades Rafflewski exhibited in San Francisco, Washington, New York, Tokyo, and Hawaii, reaching audiences far outside his adopted city. His work crossed naturally into graphic design and illustration, and he worked in painted photography alongside more traditional mediums. He remained based in Paris until his death in 2019.
On the auction market Rafflewski's work circulates primarily in the print category. In the Auctionist database, all 52 indexed items are prints and engravings, with the bulk appearing through Fineart. Hammer prices reflect the collector market for signed limited-edition lithographs: the highest recorded sale in the database is 150 NOK, consistent with the general market where works typically sell in the range of a few hundred to a low four-figure sum in USD or EUR. His record at international auction stands around $996 USD (Millon & Associés, 2021, for "New York et le pont de Brooklyn et Manhattan"). For buyers, entry-level prints remain accessible, and the hand-signed editions carry the most consistent demand.