Paul Adolphe Rajon

Who was Paul Adolphe Rajon?

Paul-Adolphe Rajon was a French painter and printmaker, who started his career as a photographer while studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin Pils. Rajon was a friend of Émile Boilvin, Philippe Burty, Félix Bracquemond and Louis-Charles-Auguste Steinheil. He was awarded medals at the Salons of 1869, 1870, 1873 and at the Exposition Universelle of 1878.

He etched both contemporary works and Old Masters as well as portraits, including ones of Ivan Turgenev, Théophile Gautier, J.S. Mill, Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Rajon was critically praised in France, England and the United States, through the acquaintance with the New York-based American print dealer Frederick Keppel.