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Patrick Nagel (November 25, 1945 – February 4, 1984) was an American artist. He created popular illustrations on board, paper, and canvas, most of which emphasize the simple grace of and beauty of the female form, in a distinctive style descended from Art Deco. He is best known for his illustrations for Playboy magazine, and the pop group Duran Duran, for whom he designed the cover of the best selling album Rio.
[edit] Biography
Nagel was born in Ohio in 1945, but was raised and spent most of his life in the Los Angeles area. After serving in the United States Army with the 101st Airborne in Vietnam,[1] Nagel attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1969, and in that same year he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Fullerton.
In 1971, Nagel worked as a graphic designer for ABC Television,
producing graphics for promotions and news broadcasts. The following
year, he began work as a freelance artist for major corporations and
magazines, including Architectural Digest, Harper's Magazine, IBM, ITT Corporation, MGM, Oui, Rolling Stone, United Artists, and Universal Studios.
In 1976, Nagel began to regularly contribute images to Playboy
magazine, which improved his exposure and the popularity of "the Nagel
Woman" image to a huge audience. In 1978, he made his first poster image
for Mirage Editions, with whom he would print many Nagel women images.
Nagel's 1982 painting for the album cover of rock group Duran Duran's hit album Rio would become one of his best known images.
He also worked for many commercial clients, including Intel, Lucky Strike cigarettes, Ballentine Whiskey, and Budweiser. As his popularity grew he began offering limited edition prints of his work.
Nagel would start with a photograph
and work down, always simplifying and removing elements which he felt
were unnecessary. The resulting image would look flat, but emphasized
those elements which he felt were most important.
According to Elena G. Millie, curator of the poster collection at the Library of Congress:
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 angles 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.[2]
Nagel's figures generally have black hair, bright white skin,
full-lipped mouths, and the distinctive Nagel eyes, which are often
squared off in the later works. Because of the intense stylization and
reduction of facial features into clean lines, generally the figures
resemble each other, though Nagel worked with many models, including Playboy Playmates Cathy St. George, Tracy Vaccaro and Shannon Tweed. Nagel also painted several celebrity portraits including those of Joan Collins (whose portrait was subsequently released as a limited edition print) and Joanna Cassidy.
Nagel also painted men, though only one was ever released as a fine
art print while Nagel was alive. He had and continues to have a devoted
following of collectors.[citation needed]
Nagel's artwork strongly influenced the illustration and clip art of the late 1980s.
In 1984, at the age of 38, the artist participated in a 15-minute celebrity "Aerobathon" to raise funds for the American Heart Association. Afterwards, he was found dead in his car, and doctors determined by autopsy that he had suffered a heart attack.[3]
At the time of his death, more than 80,000 people owned one of Nagel's limited-edition prints or best-selling lithographs.[citation needed]
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