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Nathan Oliveira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

American, 1928-2010
Born 1928, Oakland, California; Died 2010, Stanford, California. Nathan Oliveira was a leading member of the second generation of the Bay Area figurative painters. He is best known for his brilliantly colored figurative and landscape paintings as well as intricate bronze sculptures with colorful patinas. Oliveira achieved national prominence fusing Abstract Expressionism and figuration in psychologically charged canvases that explored human isolation and alienation. In 1959, he was the youngest painter included in the important exhibition New Images of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which also featured works by Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti, Richard Diebenkorn, and Jackson Pollack. Overnight, Oliveira found wide acclaim for his nervous human images, built up with thick layers of scuffed and scratched paint. Nathan Oliveira employed a bravura, brushy style of paint application. His abstracted figures and landscapes, however, reflected an affinity with the darker vision of European artists like Oskar Kokoschka and Edvard Munch or more nearly contemporary artists like Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, who shared his sense of human conflict and existential angst. Particularly influential was the German painter Max Beckmann, with whom he studied briefly. Nathan Oliveira had solo exhibitions in major museums all over the world. His paintings are held in the collections of many distinguished institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Tate Modern, London, among others.
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Artist: Nathan Oliveira
Head

Nathan OliveiraHead, 1959

Price Upon Request

Head

By Nathan Oliveira

Located in San Francisco, CA

Watercolor, gouache, ink wash, crayon, and pencil on paper

Category

1950s Nathan Oliveira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Crayon, Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Pencil

Pessoa's Sleigh II

Pessoa's Sleigh II

By Nathan Oliveira

Located in San Francisco, CA

Category

Nathan Oliveira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Monotype

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Previously Available Items
Head #1

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Nathan Oliveira drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Nathan Oliveira drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Nathan Oliveira in crayon, gouache, ink and more. Not every interior allows for large Nathan Oliveira drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 9 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Irene Pattinson, Andy Warhol, and Norman Rockwell.