A much more complete treatment can be seen in the Patrick Nagel article at Wikipedia.
Nagel painted an instantly recognizable cover of the Rio album for Duran Duran.
This 'second choice' image was also used for the Japanese 7" cover of My Own Way.
This alternate Rio cover was used on the 2001 remastered edition.
Patrick Nagel (November 25, 1945 - February 4, 1984) was an American artist. In his lifetime he created hundreds of illustrations on board, paper, and canvas, most of which emphasizes the simple grace of and beauty of the female form.
Nagel was born in Dayton, Ohio but was raised and spent most of his life in the Los Angeles area. He attended the Choinard Art Institute in Los Angeles.
Nagel's work is superficially reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints, with their unusual cropping and large fields of color, but thematically, Nagel's shares more in common with 1920s Art Deco and the design aesthetics of J. C. Leyendecker or Maxfield Parrish.
Nagel would start with a photograph and work down, always simplifying and removing elements which he felt were unnecessary. The resulting image would look flat, but emphasized those elements which he felt were most important. Because of the intense stylization and reduction of facial features into clean lines, generally the figures resemble each other, though Nagel worked with many models. Nagel also painted several celebrity portraits.
While Nagel's work is mostly represented by aloof, if also seductive women, they are rarely, if ever, presented in a submissive relationship with men. These are highly sexual, but empowered and intelligent women. Nagel also painted men, though only one was ever released as a fine art print while Nagel was alive. He had and continues to have a devoted following of collectors.
Nagel and his work garnered international acclaim through work connected with Playboy and Duran Duran, for which he designed the cover of the best selling album Rio, as well as many commercial projects.
In 1984, at the age of 38, the artist participated in a 15-minute celebrity "Aerobathon" to raise funds for the American Heart Association. Afterwards, he was found dead in his car, and doctors determined by autopsy that he had suffered a fatal heart attack.
Rio Album Cover[]
Paul Berrow, was intrigued by Nagel's sharp, stylized work while flipping through an issue of Playboy, so he commissioned the artist to do create two covers for what would become the Birmingham band's breakthrough LP. One option, of a woman languidly reclining with a yellow blossom pinned in her hair, was eventually used for the "My Own Way" single art. But, according to Annie Zaleski's 33 ½ book about the Rio album, Nick said "It was "love at first sight" when the band members saw the second, stronger image of a bare-shouldered bombshell alluringly staring down the camera lens, shining and really showing all she can. "We all said instantly: 'Yes, that's it. That's the cover,'" recalled Rhodes. [1] The cover has been recently quoted in the press as "the Mona Lisa of the New Wave Age."
Marcie Hunt was identified as the influence for the cover in June 2024.
In June 2024, former model Marcie Hunt was found to be the original inspiration for the May 1982 Rio cover, when a fan noticed her photo in Vogue Paris, from February 1981. The big reveal was announced by Monica Moynihan, a Nagel historian and art broker who runs the definitive Patrick Nagel Arts website and Instagram. The cover girl's mysterious identity was actually uncovered by another Instagrammer, @nagel_angel, who Moynihan said "deserves all the credit" and "spent $$$ and countless hours" to hunt down the original lady with the cherry ice cream smile.
Barry Hahn, Patrick Nagel’s technical art assistant, confirmed this indeed was the 'tear sheet' used by Nagel. He said "We suspect the model and maybe the band Duran Duran had no idea Nagel was influenced and used this image to create the cover of their musical masterpiece, “Rio”. He certainly changed many things, most specifically removing her glasses, but he obviously loved her smile. And that smile has been an iconic piece of Duran Duran history for decades.
It is important to note this magazine came out 15 months before the release of “Rio” and Nagel loved looking through fashion magazines from Europe. Nagel was an incredible photographer and shot so many images himself for his art, but we know he also got inspiration from other sources and this one is a gem. He then would draw out his images on paper using French Curve and once he loved his layout he would draw, ink and paint them to a board." [2]
Marcie Hunt subsequently commented on Instagram that she had no idea, is very happy, and even "played Duran at her wedding."
My Own Way Cover[]
In August 2024, Mark Walker revealed the identities of the models: "Nagel used a images of models Maria Eugênia [Villarta] (for the face and hair) and Anette Stai for the body up to the shoulders. The source images of Maria and Anette both appear in the November 1981 USA edition of Vogue. Maria's editorial was shot by photographer Denis Piel.
Originally commissioned along with the image we know as "Rio," this Nagel work eventually found its way onto the cover of Duran Duran's Japanese 45 of the "My Own Way" single. This canvas was recently on display at the @samuelvanhoegaerden Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery’s “THE REFLEXION OF THE ‘80s” Patrick Nagel show. Pat liked this image of Maria so much, that he reused it for one of his small illustrations on board for the January 1984 feature article, "A Guide For Prospective Husbands." He reproduced it again as a canvas painting and reused it a third time with Maria wearing headphones!
According to Wikipedia, Maria Eugenia is one of Brazil's most successful models having graced more than 50 magazine covers in that country." [3][4]
In popular culture[]
- Robert Palmer used very similar Nagel women in the videos for Simply Irresistible and Addicted To Love.
- In the Futurama episode "A Fishful of Dollars", the "authentic 20th century apartment" has what appears to be a Nagel-esque poster of a woman on the wall.
- In the Vertigo comics series The Sandman, the character Desire of The Endless is generally illustrated to resemble a Nagel print, specifically the portrait used for the Rio album cover. Neil Gaiman, the creator of the series and character, had previously written a biography for the band in 1984.
- The packaging and promotional material for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City similarly exhibits a stylistic debt to Nagel's work.
- In the 2010 film Hot Tub Time Machine a Nagel painting is prominently displayed in the ski lodge.
- In the 2017 Marvel film Thor: Ragnarok after Thor reunites with The Hulk and the Hulk transforms back to Dr. Bruce Banner, Dr. Banner wears a shirt emblazoned with a Nagel painting. (Duran Duran's Rio T-Shirt)
- In the 2007 animated series Xavier: Renegade Angel, a character refers to Patrick Nagel's death during the time-travel sequence of the episode "World of Hurt, BC".
- In the 2011 American Dad! episode "Fart-Break Hotel", teenager Steve travels back in time after being enamoured by a Nagel painting. Steve discovers that he is the model in the painting, with the shock returning him to his time.
- Dirty Sanchez's 2004 song Fucking on the Dancefloor, contains the lyric "You're as fake as a beauty shop Nagel" referencing the cheaply produced, mass-market posters that flooded the market in the 80s and were hung in low-rent beauty salons around the world.
- Nagel's artwork strongly influenced much of the illustration and clip art of the late 1980s and illustrations of women strongly resembling those seen in Nagel's art can still be seen on American hair salons and other beauty-oriented businesses.
- A copy of his work can be seen in the background in the Daria episode #507, "Art Burn".
References[]
- Official site, with biography and selected works
- Obituary at the New York Times
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