Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation Distinguished Painting Fellow
It’s about time Ron Nagle was invited back to SFAI, which was last blessed with his presence in his landmark 1978 Adaline Kent Award exhibition. Nagle taught at SFAI until the same year, when in his words, “I was kicked out because they called me a shoemaker!” He then taught at Mills College for 32 years and consistently produced achingly beautiful, compact, and acidly potent sculptures of cultish status that have recently taken venues such as the Venice Biennale and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York and Los Angeles, by a trenchant storm.
Nagle is a San Francisco-based artist who works in small scale, colorful and textured ceramic sculptures. His work is in museum collections across North America, Europe and Asia. Nagle apprenticed with fellow Abstract Expressionist ceramicist Peter Voulkos, and he cites Ken Price and Giorgio Morandi as significant influences. His small vessels and abstract sculptures often have puckered surfaces and gradual color fades; slabs melt into hard right angles, and monochromatic parts are given finely grained texture. While clearly handmade, to the sleekness of Nagle’s works lends them an air more alien than human. ronnagle.net
About the Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation
Distinguished Painting Fellowship
The Clive Foundation Fellowship supports visiting artists working at the leading edge of contemporary painting practices. The Fellowship offers student-artists opportunities for deep engagement with internationally recognized painters. During the 2015–2016 academic year, four artists will work directly with student-artists through critiques, discussion, workshops, public lectures, and this exhibition.
Ron Nagle, Sebaceous Sister, 2014, Mixed media, Courtesy of the artist
