Nathan Oliveira American, 1928-2010

Featuring paintings, works on paper, sculpture, film, and archival ephemera from the SFMOMA Library, and SFAI archive, this ambitious exhibition showcases museum-quality works by contemporary and historical artists, illustrating Berggruen...

'The current show at Berggruen’s red-bricked schoolhouse on Howard Street offers lessons from the past that could help power the city’s forward motion today.' — Tom Molanphy, 48 Hills 'This...

Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present Nathan Oliveira: A Survey, 1959-2010, an exhibition of paintings, watercolors, monotypes, and sculptures by Bay Area artist Nathan Oliveira. This show marks the gallery’s thirteenth solo exhibition of Oliveira’s work since his first show at Berggruen in 1979. The exhibition will be on view September 6 through October 13, 2018. The gallery will host an opening reception on Thursday, September 6 from 5:00 to 8:00pm.

Spanning over a half-century, this exhibition highlights Oliveira’s iconic work from the late 1950s through his final years. The evolution of his artistic practice exists in his myriad subjects and styles across a range of media, yet an inherent sense of raw emotion and complexity unites his body of work to express Oliveira’s unique translation of the world around him. Highly influenced and inspired by artists that proceeded him, such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco Goya, Auguste Rodin, Edvard Munch, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, and Max Beckmann, his passion was “for continuing an inner-directed artistic tradition attached to the human subject. His art represents a response to artists, both past and present, an ongoing dialogue with artists […]” (Selz, 2002). Olivera’s work is part of the continuum, a response to and interpretation of the past, as well as a place for the next generation from which to spring.

Oliveira does not follow a disciplined approach to painting or drawing but rather explores the spectrum of pure emotion and beauty achieved by artistic gesture. The physical act of creation is emphasized through textural compositions imbued with a sense of energy and motion, allowing expressive brushstrokes to bring to life a human figure, an animal, or a place (or “site,” as Oliveira calls it). The content and style of his work thus becomes a vehicle by which one can establish an intimate connection to the art object, as a certain tension between representation and abstraction incites emotional engagement and contemplation. The psychological probing of Oliveira’s work derives from the artist’s dynamic engagement with both his medium and his subject, for he does not merely create a representation but rather crafts an intimate moment between the viewer and the art object itself.

Thick, textured brushstrokes, volumetric pools of paint, deliberate and emotive color and jagged undulations of metal form a body of work grounded in an enigmatic evocation of raw and complex beauty, while vacant, decontextualized backgrounds invite the viewer to enter an otherworldly atmosphere outside of discernable space and time. As this exhibition demonstrates, embedded throughout Oliveira’s artistic output during these years is a probing of relationships between humanity, animals, and place–subjects continually reworked and reimagined to create a vision of life that is at once timeless and futuristic, capturing a universal figure or place, or as Oliveira relates it in an interview with Richard Whittaker in 2005, “[…] a perpetual, ongoing identity that is fundamental, and we are simply part of that.” While no single idiom nor style defines his artistic practice, at the heart of Oliveira’s painting and drawing is a powerful interplay of representation and abstraction. His graceful balance between the two tinges his body of work with a theatrical bravura that remains simultaneously elegant and formal, what Steven A. Nash describes as, “his own visual dramaturgy, blending expressionism and figuration, sensitive humanistic themes and urgent formal means,” resulting in a unique yet fundamentally human artistic vision.

Nathan Oliveira was born in Oakland, California in 1928 to a family of Portuguese immigrants. He studied painting and printmaking at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts, or CCAC) in Oakland, and in the summer of 1950 with Max Beckmann at Mills College in Oakland. After two years in the U.S. Army as a cartographic draftsman, he began teaching painting in 1955 at CCAC and drawing and printmaking at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute, or SFAI). In 1959 Oliveira was the youngest painter included in the groundbreaking exhibition, New Images of Man, which included established artists such as Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since then he held numerous guest teaching appointments at various art schools and universities. He held a tenured teaching position at Stanford University from 1964 until he retired in 1995. During his career, surveys of his work were held at the Art Gallery of the University of California, Los Angeles (1963); Oakland Museum of California (1973); California State University, Long Beach (1980); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1984); California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco (1997); and the San Jose Museum of Art (2002). Oliveira was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994 and has received many other awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two honorary doctorates, and, in 2000, membership in a distinguished order conferred by the government of Portugal. His work is collected nationally and is 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 Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Oliveira passed away in 2010 at his home in Palo Alto, California.

Nathan Oliveira: A Survey, 1959-2010, September 6 – October 13, 2018. On view at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries, please contact the gallery by phone (415) 781-4629 or by email info@berggruen.com.

Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present The Human Form, a sweeping exploration of the human figure from the early 20th century to today. It will be the inaugural exhibition in its new space at 10 Hawthorne Street, across from the recently expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Bringing together over 60 works by 20th century masters such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, Alberto Giacometti, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Gerhard Richter, Richard Diebenkorn, and Wayne Thiebaud, as well as leading contemporary artists George Condo, Cecily Brown, Joel Shapiro, Antony Gormley, Kiki Smith and Kehinde Wiley, The Human Form will look at the formal and conceptual ways that artists have approached the representation of the figure. As Dr. Steven A. Nash writes, “The human body has been a lightning rod for creative imagination since humankind’s earliest impulses toward graphic representation. As the most common attribute of our shared humanity, it provides a powerful channel for empathetic communication of ideas, emotions, ideals, and beliefs. Throughout the history of image-making, the body has inspired countless varieties of interpretation, but it is safe to say that no other period of art history has seen the inventive, radical, and expressive explorations of this human vessel that characterize the modern era starting in the early 20th-century.”

The exhibition is the first in the gallery’s new space, and reflects the Berggruen’s interest in putting into conversation works of historical significance with contemporary pieces that grapple with the most pressing issues of our time. The gallery has a long history of exploring figuration through its exhibitions, and this show provides an in-depth look at the significant role the figure has played for artists over time, and the way it has been adapted throughout the narrative of 20th and 21st century art. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an introductory essay by Dr. Steven A. Nash, Founding Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, Chief Curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and most recently, Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum.

Full Artist List

Milton Avery Lucian Freud Elizabeth Peyton
David Bates Alberto Giacometti Francis Picabia
Max Beckmann Antony Gormley Pablo Picasso
Michaël Borremans Edward Hopper Martin Puryear
Cecily Brown Chris Johanson Gerhard Richter
Christopher Brown Alex Katz Tom Sachs
Nick Cave Yves Klein Jenny Saville
Chuck Close Roy Lichtenstein Joel Shapiro
George Condo Henri Matisse Kiki Smith
James Crosby Barry McGee Wayne Thiebaud
Willem de Kooning Henry Moore Adriana Varejão
Richard Diebenkorn Nathan Oliveira Kara Walker
Peter Doig David Park Kehinde Wiley

The Human Form, January 13 – March 4, 2017. On view at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Images and preview are available upon request. For further information, please contact the gallery by phone
(415) 781.4629 or by email info@berggruen.com. Gallery hours: Monday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, Manuel Neri: Figures and Landscapes, an historical survey of works celebrating the iconic art of the Bay Area Figurative movement. This exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. Many of the works included in Figures and Landscapes are on loan from private collections and have rarely been shown to the public. We would like to extend our warmest gratitude to the individuals who have allowed us the opportunity to bring these paintings together in commemoration of the creative accomplishments of such distinguished artists. Please join us for our opening reception on Thursday, September 4th, 2014 between 5:30–7:30 PM.

John Berggruen Gallery, now approaching its 45th anniversary, is closely intertwined with the history of the Bay Area Figurative era. The longer we meditate on these artists and the history they forged together, the richer our understanding of this movement becomes. These four artists interpreted a forward looking modernist program not to require a specificity of medium and place, like their Abstract Expressionist cousins in New York City, but rather, deferred to optimism and a reverence for nature for inspiration. The majesty and mystery inherent in works such as Diebenkorn’s Landscape with Smoke, 1960, originates from the view that man and nature can indeed coexist in serenity, a perspective that defines the San Francisco Bay Area.

The freely brushed but carefully delineated canvases of these Bay artists quickly distinguished themselves as being disinterested in commercial interests, favoring instead psychological and pre-classical themes. While Diebenkorn and David Park consolidated and refined the wildness of the 1960's into elegant, color saturated canvases, Manuel Neri and Nathan Oliveira, the younger members of these four Bay Area favorites, were inspired by the fundamental quality of isolation. Neri's singular impasto figures and Oliveira's spiritual color fields contemplate man within and without the context of his natural environment. Together, these artists extract from the Bay Area a timeless and enduring view of man working together with nature. Through an exhibition offering a taste of the historical scope of these artists’ accomplishments, we also celebrate our own heritage.

John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present Nathan Oliveira: A Memorial Exhibition, an exhibition of his last paintings, most completed in 2010, as well as historical drawings, sculpture, and monotypes. The exhibition will occupy both floors of gallery space. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an introduction by art historian and Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum and former Associate Director and Chief Curator of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Dr. Steven A. Nash. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, September 8th from 5:30-7:30pm to coordinate with the San Francisco Art Dealer’s Association’s First Thursdays.



In the months before his death on November 13, 2010, Nathan Oliveira (b.1928) experienced a powerful explosion of creativity. His thirteen final paintings that are included in this exhibition represent a profound and moving chapter to Oliveira’s distinguished career as a painter. The paintings consist of magnificent figures standing in, or gliding through, luminous landscape-like swaths of paint. They are majestic and mysterious, and seem to have their roots in Oliveira’s early work, yet they speak of a fresh vision as well. This exhibition serves as a condensed survey that also includes early and historical works on paper, sculpture, and monotypes.



Oliveira’s various artistic forms that define his oeuvre all take the human figure as their subject matter and showcase Oliveira’s celebrated predilection for depicting bodies in various states of movement. Unconstrained by medium, Oliveira has continuously created solitary forms which captivate us with their rich earth colors, deeply textured yet balanced compositions, and vibrant spirituality. “Nathan Oliveira’s passion is for continuing an inner-directed artistic tradition attached to the human subject… The evocation of mystery that the viewer experiences in Oliveira’s work derives from a depth of feeling refracted through artistic tradition and transmitted to the spectator by the artist’s hand,” wrote Peter Selz in a catalog essay for Oliveira’s 2002 painting and printmaking retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art, California.



Nathan Oliveira was born in Oakland, California, and received his bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1951 and his master's in fine arts in 1952 at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland (later the California College of the Arts.) In 1959, Oliveira was the youngest painter included in the important exhibition New Images of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A survey of five years of his paintings and works on paper was shown at the Art Gallery of the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1963. He began teaching at Stanford University in 1964 and proceeded to build the printmaking department until his retirement in 1995. A fifteen-year survey of his paintings was organized by the Oakland Museum of California in 1973. A retrospective of his graphic works was mounted in 1980 at California State University, Long Beach, and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco organized a survey of his work in monotype in 1997. Oliveira was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994 and has received many other awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two honorary doctorates, and, in 2000, received the degree of Commander of the Order of Henry the Navigator from the President of Portugal - considered the highest decoration among modern Portuguese honorific orders. In 2002, the San Jose Museum of Art organized a traveling painting and printmaking retrospective of his work. His work is in the collections of many museums, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh as well the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Nathan Oliveira. Singular opens Wednesday, September 12th and will run through Saturday, October 20th. A reception for the artist will be held on September 12th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

Nathan Oliveira, associated with the Bay Area Figurative movement led by Richard Diebenkorn, David Park and Elmer Bischoff, continues to paint solitary figures and objects which captivate us with their rich earth colors, deeply textured yet balanced brushstrokes, and vibrant spirituality. Oliveira’s lone figures (whether in movement or at rest) are so alive that we get the feeling that as soon as we turn away from them, they will continue moving gracefully about their own private worlds. We are momentarily allowed into their intimate realms, but ultimately denied access as we realize that each ethereal figure is at peace with his own solitude. Dedicating this exhibition to Balthus, Oliveira reminds us of the modernist painter in his ability to innovate within a traditional framework. Oliveira paints with no tricks or gimmicks, merely with a talent and passion that are distinctive and singular to the painter himself.

A retrospective exhibition of Nathan Oliveira’s work will be on view at the San Jose Museum of Art from February 8th through May 12th, 2002. The retrospective then travels to the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY; the Palm Springs Desert Museum in California; the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, CA; and the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington. Nathan Oliveira was awarded the distinguished degree of “Commander” in “The Order of the Infante D. Henrique” by the President and Republic of Portugal and was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. Nathan Oliveira’s work is seen in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and many more. Singular will be accompanied by a full-color catalog with an essay written by Peter Selz, PhD. and Professor Emeritus, History of Art, University of California, Berkeley. A book on Nathan Oliveira, written by Peter Selz, Nathan Oliveira, and Jo Ann Moser, will be published by the University of California Press in March 2002.