Nancy Hoffman Gallery will present *Joseph Raffael: white ground paintings* from May 21 to June 27, 2026, featuring a series of works from the 1960s. After a bout of hepatitis and his father’s death, Raffael abandoned abstraction to create fragmented, photorealistic compositions on white grounds, first exhibited at Stable Gallery in 1965. The show includes pieces like *Monkey, brassiere and figure* (1964) and *Homage to Frank O’Hara* (1967), reflecting his psychoanalytic exploration and fragmented state of mind.
This exhibition matters because it resurfaces a pivotal but often overlooked moment in American painting, when Raffael’s White Ground works influenced representational art that followed. By turning away from the New York art world early in his career, Raffael forged an independent vision that anticipated later figurative and photorealist trends. The show offers a rare opportunity to reassess his contribution to 1960s art history and his connections to figures like Frank O’Hara, Paul Thek, and Peter Hujar.