Manuel Neri

American
(1930–2021)

Untitled
circa 1958-1960

Plaster and paint
65.5 x 22 x 13 in.
Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation
1991.17

In the late 1950s, Manuel Neri emerged as one of the first sculptors to be associated with the San Francisco Bay Area figurative school, a group of artists made up mostly of painters. Characteristically, they favored the thick gestural brushwork that was popular among the New York abstract expressionists, though they preferred figurative imagery to abstraction. Among the pioneers of the movement were Neri’s teachers Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, along with his first wife, Joan Brown.

Neri’s untitled sculpture is one of his earliest representations of the female nude, a subject he has explored often. Working in plaster, he produced expressive textures analogous to the brushstrokes that animate the surfaces of the figurative school paintings. Treating the plaster surface like canvas, he brought emotional qualities to the work by painting it with splotches of yellow, black, and red, with the latter hue positioned in the location of the heart.

Armless and devoid of details that would identify the woman as a specific individual, this form is an archetype of femininity that celebrates human dignity and the beauty of imperfection. Oddly proportioned, with elongated legs and slightly hunched shoulders, the woman’s posture is firm and proud, and her head is held high. Constructed with a minimum of materials and articulated with a simplicity of form and an expressive patina, Neri’s figure is a surrogate for all the women who have known pain and suffering, but who nevertheless persevere.

David S. Rubin

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This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Uses of the Real I , 1/20/2008 - 4/30/2011
• Uses of the Real Part II , 7/1/2009 - 8/30/2010
• Independent & Creative Impulse: Dialogues from the Collection , 8/16/2011 - 5/9/2014
• Collecting on the Edge Part I , 9/15/2018 - 12/15/2018
• Collecting on the Edge , 9/15/2018 - 5/4/2019
• San Francisco: The Golden Age 1930-1960 , 6/18/2024 - 6/30/2025

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