Patrick Nagel

Patrick Nagel synthesized components of graphic design, fashion illustration and a sensuous approach to painting the figure into a stylized personal vision which altered attitudes towards illustrating fashions in the 80s.

Nagel lived and worked most of his life in California and raised in Los Angeles and studying painting and graphic design. After graduation, he began teaching at the Art Center College of Design, while simultaneously establishing himself as a successful freelance designer, illustrator and painter. Influenced by the design of Japanese woodblock prints, Nagel's figures are silhouetted against a neutral background, with bold linear elements, strong shape relationships and unusual angles forcing perspective from a two-dimensional surface.

In addition to paintings, Nagel created more than sixty graphic editions, posters, commemorative editions and several commissions for Playboy and Architectural Digest, as well as the 1983 Duran Duran album cover on what became the number one record in the world. Beginning with his distinctive work for Playboy, Nagel's reputation as a designer was well-recognized and he produced numerous magazine covers and illustrations over the years.