Raffaele Boschini was born on 22nd July 1893 in Venice; his father Romualdo was a woodcutter and engraver. After attending the preparatory course for entry to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, Boschini embarked on his art training, frequenting the common courses and the special one dedicated to town and seascapes. From 1911 to 1912, he attended the Life studies school, and the architecture course too, which enabled him to obtain in 1914 his qualification as Teacher of Architectural Drawing. In the meantime, he had also started to attend the classes at Palazzo Pesaro as guest of Gian Luciano Soriani, a painter.
His aspiration to join the collectives of the Bevilacqua La Masa grew; he made a first attempt in 1911. In 1915, he exhibited in one of the Bianco e Nero rooms at the third Secession exhibition in Rome. In 1917, he appeared in the Milanese art scene for the Esposizione delle Tre Venezie. His first periods of residence in Milan, the city to which he moved permanently with his family in 1921, date from these years. His debut on the Milan art scene was marked by numerous graphic works focusing on an ironic satire of society and the immediate post-war situation, unmasking its hypocritical and respectably bourgeois aspects. He took part in the Esposizione Nazionale di Belle Arti (National fine arts exhibition) organised by the Accademia di Brera in 1918.
He started collaborating with Studio Editoriale Busetto, for which he produced illustrations, together with Alfeo Argentieri and Angelo Landi. Around 1928, he founded the Studio d’Arte Boschini, with which he inaugurated a busy period of illustration. He realised the advertising campaign for Campari in 1929. While working on advertising and illustration in general, Boschini nevertheless continued to cultivate his interests as an artist and became infatuated with the avant-garde. In 1933, he took part in the Mostra Nazionale di Arte Futurista (‘National Exhibition of Futurist Art’) at the Ducal Palace of Mantua. However, Boschini soon lost interest in Futurism and the artist returned to the production of portraits, executed with a close attention to the modelling potential of light and with a spontaneous approach to the figures.
His paintings of the 1940s and 1950s are often revivals, revisitations, focused analyses of earlier works.
