Foreword to the book, "Patrick Nagel"
by Elena G. Millie
(Millie was the curator of the poster collection at the Library of Congress in 1984)
At any time there are a few who give form and meaning to their generation. Patrick Nagel's emergence as one of these gifted few stemmed from his unique vision of the contemporary woman: She is elegant and sophisticated, exuding an air of mysterious enticement. She is capable, alluring and graceful, but also aloof and distant. You will never know this woman, though she stares out of the Nagel frame straight at you, compelling you to become involved, challenging you to an intense confrontation.
Nagel has created one of the most successful paintings and graphics series to appear in the last two decades. The Nagel woman has enjoyed an astounding success, both in America and abroad. His work, which bridges the gap between traditional fine art and contemporary trends, has achieved an almost unprecedented popularity.
Patrick Nagel's bright and promising career ended with his death in February 1984, at the age of thirty-eight I first became aware of Patrick Nagel's work in 1979. A friend gave me a poster she had commissioned Nagel to design for her gallery in New York. I was so taken with his craftsmanship that I immediately contacted Mirage Editions, publishers of the Nagel graphics, in order to acquire more of them for the Library of Congress collection. Later that year I included that first poster I had seen Park South Gallery at Carnegie Hall as well as his poster The Paper Mill (for the Los Angeles firm of the same name) in a major poster exhibit at the Library of Congress. These posters were a breath of fresh air after the torrent of psychedelic and propaganda posters that had flooded the scene in the late 1960s and in the 1970s.
From the initial publication of the first Nagel woman, an intensely loyal following developed that snapped up each succeeding edition immediately upon, or even prior to, publication. His creations include more than sixty graphics editions and posters, plus commemorative editions, as well as commissions by Architectural Digest and Playboy, and a 1983 record cover for a Duran Duran album that became the number-one album in the world. In addition, he did many magazine covers and illustrations. His work for Playboy, particularly, helped build his reputation by increasing his recognition and popularity.
Nagel also created many series of posters for larger distribution. Poster art is one of the most influential and pervasive of all the arts. In cities, posters meet the eye at every turn. They appeal, persuade, arouse, entice. In America, where posters have not consistently maintained the high artistic standards adhered to in some countries, Patrick Nagel's posters stand out.
Like some of the old print masters (Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard, for example), Nagel was influenced by the Japanese woodblock print, with figures silhouetted against a neutral background, with strong areas of black and white, and with bold line and unusual angels of view. He handled colors with rare originality and freedom; he forced perspective from flat, two-dimensional images; and he kept simplifying, working to get more across with fewer elements. His simple and precise imagery is also reminiscent of the art-deco style of the 1920s and 1930s- its sharp linear treatment, geometric simplicity, and stylization of form yield images that are formal yet decorative.
Nagel was given a free hand in designing his graphics. His preliminary drawings for these designs are the exact antithesis of the final paintings. They are light, airy, ragged, and free. They are composed by line, but not confined by line. He would submit images for the client to choose from, subtly suggesting the product in the artwork. After the choice had been made, Nagel would then work up the finished painting, choosing the colors and lettering himself. He sometimes used as many as twenty-two colors per image. Nagel quoted Alfred Hitchcock as having said that the real enjoyment lay in writing the script, the film was the labor. Similarly, Nagel felt that the fun of his work was in the drawing and that the labor was in the painting. He felt that his drawings took him as far as he had to go with a design, yet his finished paintings are amazingly powerful images, rich with color and artfully imaginative. Finally, he would give the finished painting, along with a black line drawing, to the silk-screen printer for execution. These fine silk-screened limited editions and posters won him an international reputation.
Nagel's posters have been in the forefront of the contemporary trend to move advertising art away from the product to other images; they also have an independent existence as a graphic form, tending to obliterate the line between fine and applied arts. His poster work is a successful amalgamation of art form and advertising medium, following the tradition of the early masters.
Nagel also brought his images to life in lush acrylic-on-canvas paintings. His first exhibition of paintings was attended by 4,000 people and was sold out within fifteen minutes. Nagel initially designed his art in small format, a practice related perhaps to his early design work, but his visions were later translated into considerably larger paintings and silk-screens. The large-scale paintings were begun at a time when interest in art was shifting from abstraction back toward realism. This shift brought with it a renewed appreciation of an interest in the human figure. The idealized expression of the human figure is, of course, the focal point of Nagel's work, particularly in his paintings. Perhaps because of their size--some approximately four by six feet, others about three by five feet--the paintings are exceptionally striking, with their rich colors and strong, crisp use of line.
In addition to his paintings, Nagel created large-scale graphics silk-screened by hand. These were usually published in limited editions of ninety or fewer and are approximately three by four feet in size. Prior to or within several weeks of publication each of the graphic editions sold out. They include only the basic elements of graphics---line and color---and are as luxurious and stunning as his paintings.
Nagel's dynamic, vibrant paintings prompted famous models and other celebrities to ask if they could pose for him. He designed a limited-edition serigraph for Dynasty's Joan Collins, whom Nagel felt had the look of his "women of the eighties": sophisticated and self-confident, a professional who was not afraid to be glamorous. She now owns five Nagel pieces. Nagel was also scheduled to do a series of limited-edition silk-screen portraits of Mick Jagger. Like Andy Warhol. Nagels work often focuses of current cultural concerns, especially as reflected in the stylized form of an ideal woman.
Nagel also completed two bronze sculptures, in multiples of one hundred and eighty each. The sculptures serve as testaments to Nagel's versatility as an artist, as well as indicating new directions in his art. The pieces also recall sculpture of the period of the 1920s and 1930s: Full Standing Woman is of a woman who confronts the viewer with strong physicality---sharp planes imbue the woman with a surreal detachment, while her stylish hat and earrings establish the cultural background.
Nagel's images tend to keep the viewer at arm's length, while also engendering a desire to know more. The central figure is almost invariably a woman, and one can trace the rise of the modern-day image of the idealized woman in Nagel's art. His women of the seventies are shown as softer, more pliable, and more innocent than his stronger, harsher, more self-assured women of the eighties. Nagel dealt with current trends, and his look is always timely.
Patrick Nagel was born in Dayton, Ohio, and was raised in the Los Angeles area. He studied fine art at Chouinard Art Institute and at California State University, Fullerton, where he received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1969 in painting and graphic design. After graduation, he began teaching at the Art Center College of Design, while simultaneously establishing himself as a free-lance designer, illustrator, and painter. His wife, Jennifer Dumas, a successful model, had a great influence on his life and art. She occasionally posed for him, and some have speculated she was the inspiration for the concept we recognize as the Nagel woman
Nagel had several one-man shows of paintings and graphics: a retrospective at the prestigious Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at UCLA; inclusions in exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress; and numerous painting commissions, from the White House, IBM, MGM, United Artists, Universal Studies, Harpers, and Psychology Today, among others. Nagel's artistic legacy is vast. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, and the Musee de L'Affiche, in Paris, as well as in the hands of many fortunate private collectors.
