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for PAUL ADOLPHE RAJON
PAUL ADOLPHE RAJON
1842 - 1888
(b Dijon, July 1842 or 1843; d Auvers-sur-Oise, Val d'Oise, 8 June 1888).
French painter and printmaker. After a rudimentary education he was employed by his brother-in-law, a photographer, to retouch negatives. He then moved to Paris where he supported himself by working as a photographer while training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin Pils. In Paris he became friendly with Emile Boilvin and also came to know Philippe Burty, Félix Bracquemond and Louis-Charles-Auguste Steinheil. Though he studied painting he also learnt to etch under Léon Gaucherel and Léopold Flameng and decided to devote himself to etching. He made his début at the Salon in 1865 with a drawing, but from 1868 he exhibited only etchings. His works, which were mainly reproductions of paintings by contemporary artists or by Old Masters such as Gainsborough, Rembrandt and Rubens, appeared in the journals L'Art and Gazette des beaux-arts and were also published by Galeries Goupil. He also produced original portrait etchings of contemporary writers including Turgenev, Tennyson and Théophile Gautier. In 1873 Rajon received a commission through Bracquemond to go to England. Thereafter he visited the country for six months a year, making portrait etchings such as Darwin, after Walter William Ouless (1848-1933), and Mrs Rose, after Frederick Sandys. Both in France and England he enjoyed financial and critical success and, through his acquaintance with the American print dealer Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) in New York, his fame also spread to the USA, which he visited. He was awarded medals for graphic art at the Salons of 1869, 1870, 1873 and at the Exposition Universelle of 1878.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. Beraldi: Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1885-92), xi, pp. 151-67
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