Nathan Oliveira

The Californian artist Nathan Oliveira (Oakland, 1928 - Palo Alto, 2010) has, on many occasions, been included with the figurative art movement of the San Francisco Bay area, to which painters such as Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff belong. However, although his painting was figurative, the artist did not share the hedonistic optimism of the artists of this movement. Oliveira concentrated his artistic work on analysis of the human being and felt himself to be closer to artists like Edvard Munch, Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon. Like them, he conceived the human being as solitary and forlorn, and this he expressed in his work. In the last few years the female figure has become the principle theme in Nathan Oliveiras work.