Joseph Raphael, painter and printmaker, was born in the small mining town of Jackson, California on June 2, 1869. He studied under Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the California School of Design in San Francisco and, in 1902, he left for Paris where he continued his studies at L'École nationale des Beaux-Arts and with Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian. Raphael participated in the Paris Salons between 1902 and 1906, and he was awarded an Honorable Mention in 1906. He divided his time between France, Holland and Belgium for the next four decades with only a brief visit to San Francisco after the turn of the century.

With Europe in turmoil and World War II approaching, Raphael returned to California in 1939, relocating in San Francisco. Having had assimilated the mechanics of French Impressionism, he championed American Impressionism. Throughout his career, he exhibited internationally and participated in numerous exhibitions in California. He exhibited in group exhibitions at the San Francisco Art Association, the California Society of Etchers, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 (winning a silver medal for his paintings), the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego (winning a gold medal), the Oakland Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art Inaugural, and the Golden Gate International Exposition.

Known primarily as a painter, Raphael was equally facile in printmaking and he created a number of color woodcuts of San Francisco, Sausalito and other Bay Area locations. His work is represented in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Oakland Museum of California; the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Mills College Art Museum, Oakland; and the Monterey Museum of Art, California.

Joseph Raphael died in San Francisco on December 11, 1950.