BIOGRAPHY
RALPH GARAFOLA, was raised in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn and he studied at the Art Students League of New York for seven years. He was an assistant to Frank J. Reilly, instructor at the League and Commissioner of Art for New York City.
Ralph Garafola has made a living as an artist for 50 years; and brings a traditional style to his oil and watercolor paintings of portraits, landscapes, seascapes and still life. He frequently travels throughout the South and Florida, Italy, England and France to photograph, sketch and paint various subjects and locations for his future paintings, while studying the works of Old Masters. He presently teaches portraiture at the duCret School of Art, Plainfield, NJ. He is a member of the Art Center of Manatee, Long Boat Key and Sarasota Art Centers. His works hang in private collections in California, Florida, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia
Garafola‘s portraits and still life capture the personality and character of his subjects, while his landscapes and seascapes capture the mood of the scenes. “All of my paintings are portraits. Whether my subject is a person, a landscape, a seascape or a still life, my approach is to portray my subject in its natural environment. It puts the viewer inside the painting”, says Garafola. “My paintings realistically depict what nature has created”, he says. NJ Savvy Living Magazine featured him as one of the three premier portrait artists in New Jersey in its Fall 2000 Issue.
Garafola was the recipient of a Certificate of Excellence at the International 2000 Portrait Arts Festival of the American Society of Portrait Artists Foundation held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He also won the 2000 Marion Anderson Memorial Award for Portraiture at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts in Summit; and won Honorable Mention at the Juried Show of the Les Malamut Gallery in Union. Other awards included the Grumbacher Gold Medallion Award, Best in Show at Somerset Art Association, Gold Medal from the Art Directors Club of New Jersey, Award for Excellence at the Mountain Art Show and numerous other awards.
Garafola exhibits on a regular basis at Somerset Art Association, Watchung Art Association, New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, Ridgewood Art Institute, Westfield Art Association, Mountain Art Show and Art in the Hills Show. He also has exhibited at the Cloninger Gallery, Jewel Spiegel Gallery; Automatic Data Processing Headquarters (ADP), Children’s Hospital in Westfield, Berlex Corporation, Beneficial World Headquarters, Park Avenue Club, Westfield Art Gallery and Warren Public Library. The artist’s work was included in the Ridgewood Art Institute’s Catalogue for 1997-99. A more complete collection can be viewed on Garafola’s website, www.ralphgarafola.com.
Garafola’s portrait of the American Revolutionary martyr, Major General Joseph Warren, hangs in Warren Township’s Municipal Courtroom. Garafola’s recently commissioned portraits included Jamie DiNardo, Equestrienne/Champion Rider; Charles McDowell Sr., former law professor at Washington and Lee University of Lexington, Va.; Franklyn Babbit, airplane pilot, entrepreneur of Myrtle Beach, SC., the late Rev. Michael A. McGuire, pastor of Sacred Heart Church, South Plainfield, NJ and a young child, Monica, of Somerset County, NJ. He recently completed a portrait of Lora Codington, philanthropist, which hangs in the Warren Library.
Garafola was featured in The Star Ledger, Asbury Park Press, Courier News, The Home News, The Journal Newspaper, B.Savvy Magazine of Central New Jersey, Warren Business and Professional Newspaper, New Jersey Savvy Living Magazine, The Warren Historical Society Newsletter, Long Island Power and Sail Magazine, Sino Monthly Magazine, Portrait Signature-Journal of the American Society of Portrait Artists and on the Homebuyers Shopping Channel on Cable TV.
Garafola maintains a studio in the Sarasota area of Florida during the winter; and gives private lessons and has a gallery in his Warren, New Jersey home.
For more information click:
