RAFT, EMANUEL (1938-2016)

"Untitled" (1963) 
mixed media on board
cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Melbourne
 
Raft was an important Egyptian-Australian Abstract Expressionist. Born Emanuel Raftopoulos (later abbreviated to Raft) to Greek-Egyptian & Italian-Egyptian parents, Raft emigrated to Australia in 1956, but returned to Europe and enrolled as a part-time student at the Bissietta Art School. In mid-1959, he sailed for Europe and for Milan. He studied at the Brere Academy, where Bissietta himself had studied. He travelled on to Paris and London. Returning to Sydney, he began the paintings that would initially establish his reputation. They were of unnerving bleached bone-like forms surrounded by a funereal gloom. Emanuel scarred and seared his paintings with a blowtorch. His exhibitions of these early 1960s paintings often included pieces of jewellery, and indeed later, in the 1970s, he would represent Britain in jewellery exhibitions. Through his career his work swung, pendulum like, between romanticism/expressionism and classicism/formality. In 1968, the National Gallery of Victoria mounted "The Field". It included two of Raft's tall "Monolith" sculptures whose brooding black areas were invigorated by tidy, narrow stripes of pulsating colour. Raft’s contribution to Australian craft is an example of the critical contribution that migrants played, particularly to the development of contemporary jewellery. Though he positioned himself as an artist, his period as a jeweller helped establish this new art form in the heady art scene of 1960s Sydney. His works are represented in numerous significant collections, including the NGV, AGNSW, AGSA & AGWA.