# Raffie Lavie artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/raffie-lavie/
Profile generated: 2026-05-09T20:42:00.000Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Death date: 2007-05-07
- Nationality: Israeli
- Movements: Abstract Expressionism
- Common media: painting

## About Raffie Lavie

Raffi Lavie (1937–2007) was an Israeli painter, art educator, and critic based in Tel Aviv, where he spent most of his life. Active as both a maker and a commentator on Israeli visual culture, Lavie taught art and wrote extensively on music and visual arts. His paintings occupy a distinctive space between raw graffiti gesture and abstract expressionist composition, layering scratchy linear marks over fields of color or bare ground. This cross-disciplinary sensibility—critic, educator, and painter—gave Lavie an outsized role in shaping the discourse around contemporary Israeli art during the late twentieth century. Collectors encounter his work primarily through Israeli and international contemporary art auctions, where his canvases and works on paper appear with regular frequency.

## Common works and media

Lavie is most commonly encountered as acrylic or oil paintings on canvas and works on paper including mixed-media pieces that combine paint with drawing and collage elements. His characteristic style features loose gestural brushwork, scrawled linear marks, and a pared-down color palette. Works range from intimate works on paper to larger canvases. Signed pieces with clear provenance are standard in auction contexts.

## Market and appraisal context

Lavie's auction footprint is considerable, with hundreds of recorded lots crossing the secondary market over the past several decades. Works range from large-scale canvases to smaller works on paper. Key valuation factors include the work's date and period, condition of the surface—especially important given his deliberate use of rough, gestural mark-making—provenance history, and whether the piece is signed. Comparable auction results from Israeli and international contemporary art sales provide the strongest basis for estimating value. Collectors should note that his critical and educational legacy can add cultural significance beyond purely market-driven pricing.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine structured artist identity research from authority files and institutional sources with auction records, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lot data when those records are available. For Raffi Lavie, identity data is grounded in the Library of Congress Name Authority File, Getty ULAN, VIAF, Wikidata, and the RKD. Market context draws on the breadth of Lavie's recorded auction history.

## Sources

- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr94006367
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/25489156/
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500060346
- RKD: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/255031
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2300153
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffi_Lavie