Patrick Nagel

Patrick Nagel (November 25, 1945 – February 4, 1984) was an American artist and illustrator. He created popular illustrations on board, paper, and canvas, most of which emphasize the female form in a distinctive style, descended from Art Deco and pop art.

He produced many illustrations for ''Playboy'' magazine. His cover for the rock group Duran Duran's '' Rio'' album has been acclaimed as one of the greatest album covers of all time.

Early life and education

Nagel was born in Dayton, Ohio, on November 25, 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, 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.

Career

Illustration and design

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.

Nagel produced album covers for recording artists such as Tommy James, Charlene, Thelma Houston and Cissy Houston.

Nagel's 1982 painting for the album cover of rock group Duran Duran's hit album '' Rio'', designed by Malcolm Garrett, became one of his best known images. The model in Nagel's painting has been identified as Marcie Hunt, who featured in a 1981 issue of ''Vogue Paris''. A lithograph of the album cover is part of the collection of MoMA.

He worked for many commercial clients, including Intel, Lucky Strike cigarettes, Ballantine's Whiskey, and Budweiser.

Nagel contributed to ''Playboy'' magazine between August 1975 and July 1984, with one of his paintings being published in every issue, most notably in the ''Playboy Advisor, Playboy Forum'' and ''Playboy After Hours'' columns. This helped to improve his exposure to a wider audience and encouraged the popularity of "the Nagel Woman" image. He created roughly 285 pieces of art work for ''Playboy'' during his career. In the early part of his time with ''Playboy'' he was given very specific illustration instructions, but that ended sometime between 1977 and 1978; thereafter, Nagel chose his theme and approach and submitted his work for approval before publication. In 1993, roughly nine years after Nagel's death, his widow Jennifer Dumas went into litigation with ''Playboy'' over the rights to the artwork published in the magazine. See ''Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Dumas.''

The Nagel woman

In 1977, Nagel made his first poster image for Mirage Editions, with whom he printed many images, his most famous being those of "Nagel women". The "Nagel woman" was developed over time and increased in popularity after Nagel began publishing his work with ''Playboy'' in 1975. The women were drawn as "Nagel's ideal woman". His female figures tended to have black hair, and bright white skin. Nagel worked with many models, including ''Playboy'' Playmates Cathy St. George, Tracy Vaccaro and Shannon Tweed, and also painted several celebrity portraits, including those of Joan Collins and Joanna Cassidy.

Nagel's portraits were created by tracing a photograph of the subject with Nagel usually making edits to hair and clothing to better match his tastes and style. The source material for much of his work was found objects that included fashion magazine spreads and advertisements. In many cases the original model had no idea it was their image that was used. Model Marcie Hunt, whose image Nagel picked from a ''Vogue Paris'' feature, did not know she was used for the cover of ''Rio'' until forty-two years later.

There has been much discussion about the inspiration for Nagel's style; since little is known about Nagel's art background, there is no definite answer to this.

Art historians have speculated that he may have been influenced by Japanese-style art, but there is no specific evidence for that. His mapmaking experiences in Vietnam possibly did more to steer him into high contrast imagery than anything else.

Death and legacy

Death

Nagel died February 4, 1984, after participating in a 15-minute celebrity " aerobathon" to raise funds for the American Heart Association in Santa Monica. An autopsy determined his cause of death was a heart attack, and a further autopsy revealed that Nagel had a congenital heart defect that went undetected his entire life. He was survived by his wife, Jennifer Dumas, and his daughter from a previous marriage, Carole Nagel LaVigne. Against his parents' wishes and through no direction attributable to him, Patrick Nagel was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

Legacy

Nagel's works "capture the emotional state of an era: 1980s American desire, collective materialistic aspiration, a '' Less than Zero'' state of mind", said Alex Israel, whom Duran Duran hired to create the album art for their 2015 release '' Paper Gods'', which visually references Nagel's famous ''Rio'' cover.

The short-lived cartoon '' Moonbeam City'' starring Rob Lowe and Elizabeth Banks based all of its characters on the male and female models of Nagel’s work. Its architectural aesthetic also borrowed from Nagel’s minimalist sensibilities and applied them to the chrome and tile designs of the Memphis Group, which created the predominant deco-influenced style of the 1980s.

Art market

Nagel prints flooded the market in the 1980s. Nagel's manager, Karl Bornstein, president of Mirage Editions Inc., continued publication of Nagel's works after his death, including open edition prints and mass-market posters. In addition, in 1991, the FBI discovered and dismantled a counterfeiting ring which flooded the market with forged serigraphs. While this contributed to Nagel's cultural ubiquity—Nagel artwork was in a reported two million homes worldwide—it also served to exploit the brand and ultimately, dramatically lowered its value.

By 2019, the market showed signs of a comeback, with one of his original works from 1982 selling for $112,500 at auction, nearly doubling its estimated value, while limited-run silkscreen posters can go for several thousand dollars. Nagel has also had a resurgence in the form of collaborations with mass-market brands. In 2020, fast fashion retailer Forever 21 launched an apparel collection featuring Nagel portraits.

References

Further reading

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagel, Patrick
1945 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American illustrators
Artists from California
Artists from Dayton, Ohio
People from Orange County, California
Playboy illustrators
Chouinard Art Institute alumni
California State University, Fullerton alumni
American album-cover and concert-poster artists