Nathan Oliveira Figurative 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.to
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Artist: Nathan Oliveira
Nude Stepping from the Carpet
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Nathan Oliveira. "Nude Stepping from the Carpet" is a contemporary painting, oil on canvas in a palette of reds, greens, and beiges by Bay Area figurative artist Nathan Oliveira. The artwork is signed in the lower right, "N Oliveira 62".
During the early years, Oliveira’s lone figures often suggest an existential angst similar to that of Giacometti, but there is also a weightlessness and a transcendent aura that envelopes these figures; they appear as elemental, universal and eternal projections of selfless consciousness better understood within the bodiless realm of metaphysics. These qualities would remain in his work throughout his long career, yet he would find other themes to explore — the natural world where the essential nature of birds and animals exist in equal profundity with their human counterparts, the transient world of evanescent perception when memory must reconstruct momentary experience, and later, the ‘site’ paintings and monoprints that suggest the abandoned remnants of a long-lost civilization or tribe uncovered at an archeological dig.
Nathan Oliveira has left us with a legacy of art that will surely remain untarnished by time or changing trends. His work exists within a realm rarely achieved by artists striving in a similar mode of expression. Unclouded by ego or wayward sentiment, it is also in the warmth and humble nature...
Category
Mid-20th Century Contemporary Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Untitled
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Nathan Oliveira. "Untitled" is a Bay Area Figurative Painting, oil on canvas in a brown and tan palette by American artist Nathan Oliveira. The artwork is signed in the lower right, "Oliveira 64”.
A Californian whose work is of preeminent importance during the post war period, Oliveira is most often associated with Park, Diebenkorn and the other artists with whom he sketched early in his career. Yet it was not an oversight when Oakland Museum director Paul Mills chose not to include Oliveira in the 1957 exhibition “Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting.” All came to figuration by initiating a sophisticated dialogue with abstraction, yet it is Oliveira, the often characterized ambivalent loner among Bay Area artists whose work is most often compared to Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, or Willem de Kooning with whom he shared walls and space at The Images of Man exhibition held in New York at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959.
During the early years, Oliveira’s lone figures often suggested an existential angst similar to that of Giacometti, but there was also a weightlessness and a transcendent aura that envelopes these figures; they appear as elemental, universal and eternal projections of selfless consciousness better understood within the bodiless realm of metaphysics. These qualities would remain in his work throughout his long career, yet he would find other themes to explore — the natural world where the essential nature of birds and animals exist in equal profundity with their human counterparts, the transient world of evanescent perception when memory must reconstruct momentary experience, and later, the ‘site’ paintings and monoprints that suggest the abandoned remnants of a long-lost civilization or tribe uncovered at an archeological dig.
Through and through, flesh to bones, and bones to dust Nathan Oliveira has left us with a legacy of art that will surely remain untarnished by time or changing trends. His work exists within a realm rarely achieved by artists striving in a similar mode of expression. Unclouded by ego or wayward sentiment, it is also in the warmth and humble nature...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-War Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$125,000
Figure with Blue Eyes
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A painting by Nathan Oliveira. "Figure with Blue Eyes" is a figurative painting, oil on canvas in a palette of browns and creams with a pop of blue by Bay Area Figurative artist Nath...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Stelae No. 5
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Stelae No. 5" is a painting by Bay Area Figurative artist Nathan Oliveira. The painting is signed and dated lower right, "Oliveira 98". The framed piece measures 67 1/2 x 55 3/4 x 2 in.
A Californian whose work is of preeminent importance during the post war period, Oliveira is most often associated with Park, Diebenkorn and the other artists with whom he sketched early in his career. Yet it was not an oversight when Oakland Museum director Paul Mills chose not to include Oliveira in the 1957 exhibition “Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting.” All came to figuration by initiating a sophisticated dialogue with abstraction, yet it is Oliveira, the often characterized ambivalent loner among Bay Area artists whose work is most often compared to Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, or Willem de Kooning with whom he shared walls and space at The Images of Man exhibition held in New York at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959.
During the early years, Oliveira’s lone figures often suggested an existential angst similar to that of Giacometti, but there was also a weightlessness and a transcendent aura that envelopes these figures; they appear as elemental, universal and eternal projections of selfless consciousness better understood within the bodiless realm of metaphysics. These qualities would remain in his work throughout his long career, yet he would find other themes to explore — the natural world where the essential nature of birds and animals exist in equal profundity with their human counterparts, the transient world of evanescent perception when memory must reconstruct momentary experience, and later, the ‘site’ paintings and monoprints that suggest the abandoned remnants of a long-lost civilization or tribe uncovered at an archeological dig.
Through and through, flesh to bones, and bones to dust Nathan Oliveira has left us with a legacy of art that will surely remain untarnished by time or changing trends. His work exists within a realm rarely achieved by artists striving in a similar mode of expression. Unclouded by ego or wayward sentiment, it is also in the warmth and humble nature...
Category
1990s Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
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Born in Norway in an artistic family and educated in the US, von Morisse turns his acute insight rooted in the European tradition of intellectual irony to examination of American visual and popular culture. His imagery combines cartoon aesthetics with surrealism and pop-art, employing icons of mass culture and history of art for a playful exploration of the consumerist era.
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Von Morisse is a conceptual painter, interested in exploring aspects of human psychology and how we interact with the world. With his work End of a New Dawn, reviewed by Jonathan Goodman in Art in America (Oct. 2005, p.180), he was the Winner of the Best New Contemporary Artists Award 2005 at the Kunstnerenes Hus Museum in Oslo, Norway. End of a New Dawn explores relationship between painting and photography “reversing" the traditional roles of the two mediums by using paintings as the starting point for an elaborate and intricate photographic process.
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He had solo exhibitions with Silas Von Morisse Gallery (2016 & 2018), McKenzie Fine Art (2005 & 2003), and James Graham and Sons (2000, 1997) in New York, NY. His work was reviewed in: Artsy (2018), Artcritical (2018), Two Coats of Paint (2018), Artnet news (2017), The Vienna Psychoanalyst (2016), Photograph (2016), New York Times T Magazine (2014), ELLE Girl Japan (2014), Blouin Art Info (2014), Luxe Immo (2013), Art News (2007), The Morning News...
Category
2010s Contemporary Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
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$9,600 Sale Price
20% Off
H 26 in W 26 in D 1.5 in
Contemporary Minimalistic Figurative Acrylic Painting on Canvas Light Colour
Located in Vilnius, Vilniaus apskr.
The series of works Utopia of TOLINA features paintings and drawings inspired by the imagination of the artist’s five-year-old son, who created a constantly shifting city — a refuge ...
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2010s Contemporary Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Cotton Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
$4,732
H 39.38 in W 70.87 in
Academic Study
Located in London, GB
Oil on Canvas
46cm × 37cm (57cm × 49cm framed)
Until the 1930s, this painting was considered to be by Théodore Géricault. Indeed, since its creation c.1810, it has been sold twice a...
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19th Century French School Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
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Myth of Ganymede riding astride Zeus as an eagle oil on canvas
Located in Hudson, NY
Ganymede was a Trojan prince in Greek mythology, known for his compelling beauty. Because of his alluring good looks, Ganymede was abducted by Zeus to serve as cup-bearer in Olympus....
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«Sh*t Happens» Figurative Oil Painting by Samantha Van Heest
By Samantha Van Heest
Located in Oslo, NO
Shit happens sometimes. In this piece, the artist wanted to create an unsettling and claustrophobic space where people feel most private and vulnerable. Inspired by artist Tala Madani, she created a cartoon figure to act as the voyeur, a bright and unwelcome disturbance that cannot be ignored.
Samantha Van Heest...
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2010s Contemporary Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
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H 38 in W 48 in D 1.5 in
Robert Kenneth White “Back to Nature” Signed Figurative Nude Oil Painting
Located in Miami, FL
ROBERT KENNETH WHITE – "BACK TO NATURE"
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A MASTERWORK OF LIGHT, FORM, AND HUMAN CONNECTION TO NATURE
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$6,100
H 40.125 in W 36.125 in D 1.75 in
Contemporary Figurative Oil Painting 'Contraposicion'. Dark Green. Horizon.
Located in Vilnius, Vilniaus apskr.
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Perseus and Andromeda
Located in Paris, Île-de-France
Carle Vanloo (Nice 1705 – Paris 1765)
Perseus and Andromeda
Oil on canvas. H. 081; W. 065.
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The Artist's Wife oil painting by Hans Burkhardt
By Hans Burkhardt
Located in Hudson, NY
Hans Burkhardt
The Artist's Wife (1930)
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Nude in the rocks
Located in PARIS, FR
Edouard Dumoulin
Nude in the rocks
Oil on canvas
131 x 66 cm (144 x 79 cm with frame)
No signature. Issued from same collection of te artist's works
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1930s Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
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«Ta meg i mot» Figurative Oil Painting, toppless woman with blue boxing gloves
Located in Oslo, NO
«Ta meg i mot» oil on canvas by Anastína Eyjólfsdóttir.
A toppless woman equipped with blue boxing gloves poses by the shore. Behind her, the sky and small strip of sea create a bl...
Category
2010s Contemporary Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$6,000
H 47.25 in W 59.06 in
Previously Available Items
At The ADAA Art Show - Figure with Arm Up
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Untitled Figure
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Figure
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Revisited Standing Figure
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Standing Figure
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Skating Figure
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Untitled Standing Figure
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
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Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Runner
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Figure with Shoe
By Nathan Oliveira
Located in San Francisco, CA
Category
Nathan Oliveira Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Nathan Oliveira figurative paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Nathan Oliveira figurative paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Nathan Oliveira in canvas, fabric, oil paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the post-war style. Not every interior allows for large Nathan Oliveira figurative paintings, so small editions measuring 48 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Francis Plummer, Randall Berndt, and Grace Graupe-Pillard. Nathan Oliveira figurative paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $55,000 and tops out at $135,000, while the average work can sell for $115,000.