Manuel Neri
Manuel Neri, Remaking of Mary Julia, No. 1, bronze with enamel, 1981
Birth name	John Manuel Neri
Born	April 12, 1930 (1930-04-12) (age 79) Sanger, California
Nationality	American
Field	Sculpture, also painting and printmaking
Training	California College of Arts and Crafts (1951–1956), California School of Fine Arts (1956-1958)
Movement	Bay Area Figurative Movement
Awards	American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters – Award in Art (1982) San Francisco Arts Commission – Outstanding Achievement in Sculpture (1985) San Francisco Art Institute – Honorary Doctorate (1990) California College of Arts and Crafts – Honorary Doctorate (1992) Corcoran School of Art – Honorary Doctorate (1995)

Manuel Neri (born April 12, 1930) is an American sculptor, painter, and printmaker and a notable member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.

[edit] Biography

Neri was born in Sanger, California, to immigrant parents who had fled Mexico during political unrest following the Mexican Revolution. He began attending college at San Francisco City College in 1950, initially studying to be an electrical engineer. After taking a class in ceramics there, he was inspired to become an artist. He continued his education at California College of Arts and Crafts and at California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Neri studied under Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, taking up abstract expressionism under their influence, but later turning toward figurative art along with them. [1]

In the late 1950s, he was a member of the artist-run cooperative gallery, the Six Gallery, along with Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, and Jay DeFeo. In 1959, Neri became an original member of Bruce Conner's Rat Bastard Protective Association. ^[1]

Neri taught sculpture and ceramics at California School of Fine Arts from 1959–1965 and was on the faculty of the University of California, Davis from 1965-1999. [2]

Neri was married to Bay Area Figurative painter Joan Brown from 1962–1966. (Their relationship and artistic collaboration date back several years prior to this, however.) Two of his children, Noel Neri and Ruby Neri, are also artists. Ruby Neri is noted for her graffiti work (under the name "Reminisce") and as part of the first generation of Mission School artists. [3] [4] Neri currently resides in an old church converted into a home in Benicia, California.

[edit] Works

Although Neri's work includes many paintings, drawings, and prints, his primary medium is sculpture, typically using plaster, but sometimes marble or bronze. He is noted for his life-size sculptures, which though clearly figurative in nature, are abstracted figures rather than realist representations. His sculptures often emphasize surface texture, and the surfaces of his sculptures are often, sanded, chipped, or painted to emphasize textures. [5] His approach to sculpture is often described as "painterly", and his approach to drawing and painting is correspondingly described as "sculptural". [6] [7]

The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D. C.), the Denver Art Museum, the El Paso Museum of Art (El Paso, Texas), Grounds for Sculpture (Hamilton, New Jersey), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Laumier Sculpture Park and Museum (St. Louis, Missouri), the Neuberger Museum of Art (State University of New York, Purchase, New York), the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (Utah State University, Logan, Utah), the Oakland Museum of California (Oakland, California), the Palm Springs Desert Museum (Palm Springs, California), the San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego, California), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City) are among the public collections holding works by Manuel Neri.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Books

• Cowart, Jack (editor). 1996. Manuel Neri: Early Works, 1953–1978. Washington, DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art. ISBN 0886750466 (hardcover), ISBN 0886750474 (paperback)
• Cowart, Jack, and Amerson, Price. 1994. Manuel Neri: A Sculptor’s Drawings. Washington, DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art. ISBN 0886750415
• Nixon, Bruce. 2005. Manuel Neri: The Collaborative Process. Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press. ISBN 1555952593
• Marika Herskovic, Abstract and Figurative Expressionism: Style is Timely Art is Timeless {New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 180-183

[edit] External links

• Artist's Forum: Manuel Neri
• Artnet: Manuel Neri
• Manuel Neri at Hackett-Freedman Gallery
• Manuel Neri at Gallery Paule Anglim
• Manuel Neri at Charles Cowels Gallery.
• "Manuel Neri: Palpable Tensions" at Fresno Museum of Art
• "Manuel Neri" by Roberta Carasso, ArtScene, March 1998.
• "Art: First Solo Show For Manuel Neri" by Hilton Kramer, New York Times, February 27, 1981.
• "Figuration's mainstay has found a niche since illuminating his model's poetry" by Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle, August 24, 2005.
• "Manuel Neri", Artworks Magazine, Winter 2006 (posted on web May 18, 2008).