Sarah Raphael
Sarah Natasha Raphael (10 August 1960 – 10 January 2001) was an English artist best known for her portraits and draughtsmanship. Early life. Raphael was born on 10 August 1960 in East Bergholt, Suffolk – in the same birthplace village as John Constable, the renowned landscape painter, who was born in 1776. Her parents were Sylvia Betty Glatt and Frederic Raphael – screenwriter, novelist and journalist. She had two siblings. Her family lived abroad for long periods of time. "As a little girl aged seven, she was dazzled by the beauty of the Greek island Ios, where she lived with her  family. She started painting it then and there with her little box of paints, and she would return to the motif later in adult life," says the Guardian. Sarah was educated at Bedales School (Steep, Hampshire), and subsequently studied art at Camberwell School of Art, London, 1978 – 81, graduating with a First Class Honours Degree. Career. Raphael worked in several media and in both figurative and abstract styles. As a portrait painter she gained recognition at the highest level and is featured on The National Portrait Gallery's website. Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National Portrait Gallery, called her  one of the finest figurative artists of the generation. She was an accomplished, assured draftsman. A survey of her work is provided by the book, "Sarah Raphael Drawings", published by Carcanet Press Ltd, October 2004. As William Boyd has written of her figurative works, "You can tell how good they are yourself: you don't need the imprimatur of a gallery or a dealer or a patron." Initially notable for her portraits, Raphael's paintings became progressively more abstract, especially evident through the series: "Desert Paintings" (mid-90s), "STRIP!" (1997) and "Time Travel for Beginners" (2000). Of particular note of her  prints (etchings and monotypes) are the "Small Objects" works, which relate to the "STRIP!" paintings. She illustrated books written by her father, Frederic, "The Hidden I: A Myth Revisited" in 1990 and "Of Gods and Men" in 1992. She has works hanging in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and in several large corporate collections as well as London's National Portrait Gallery. By 1995, she was so much in demand that her paintings were fetching £50,000 Later life. Her experience of migraines and their influence on her work were the subject of journalism and medical research, the latter  in a paper, "Sarah Raphael's Migraine with Aura as Inspiration for the Foray of her Work into Abstraction", by Klaus Podoll and Debbie Ayles – Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University Pauwelsstrasse 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany. Personal life and death. Raphael married Nick McDowell in 1985 and they had three daughters. She and her husband were separated at the time of her death. She died from septicaemia following pneumonia, aged 40, on 10 January 2001.