Manuel Neri
Sculptor Manuel Neri in his Carrara, Italy studio, 1983; photo by Sally Larsen
Born	Manuel John Neri Jr. (1930-04-12)April 12, 1930 Sanger, California, U.S.
Died	October 18, 2021(2021-10-18) (aged 91) Sacramento, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	California College of Arts and Crafts (1951–1952; 1955-1956), California School of Fine Arts (1956-1958)
Known for	Sculpture, alsodrawing,painting andprintmaking
Movement	Bay Area Figurative Movement,Funk art
Awards	Guggenheim Foundation - Fellowship (1979) National Endowment for the Arts - Individual Artist Grant (1980) American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters – Award in Art (1982) San Francisco Arts Commission – Outstanding Achievement in Sculpture (1985) San Francisco Art Institute – Honorary Doctorate (1990) California College of Arts and Crafts – Honorary Doctorate (1992) Corcoran School of Art – Honorary Doctorate (1995) Orange County Museum of Art - Distinguished Artist Award (1999) International Sculpture Center - Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture (2006) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - Bay Area Treasure (2008)

Manuel John Neri Jr. (April 12, 1930 – October 18, 2021) was an Americansculptor who is recognized for his life-size figurative sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble. In Neri's work with the figure, he conveys an emotional inner state that is revealed through body language and gesture. Since 1965 his studio was inBenicia, California; in 1981 he purchased a studio inCarrara, Italy, for working in marble. Over four decades, beginning in the early 1970s, Neri worked primarily with the same model, Mary Julia Klimenko, creating drawings and sculptures that merge contemporary concerns with Modernist sculptural forms.

Manuel John Neri Jr. was born on April 12, 1930, inSanger, California, to immigrant parents fromJalisco^[1] who left Mexico during political unrest following theMexican Revolution. He began attending college atSan Francisco City College in 1950, initially studying to be an electrical engineer.^[2] A class inceramics withPeter Voulkos inspired him to continue his art studies. He enrolled atCalifornia College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, and at California School of Fine Arts (now theSan Francisco Art Institute). Neri studied underRichard Diebenkorn,Elmer Bischoff, andFrank Lobdell, among others. He began to create life-sized figurative sculptures inplaster and mixed media, their surfaces often painted to accentuate the forms and gestures.^[3]

In the late 1950s, Neri was a member of the artist-run cooperative gallery,Six Gallery in San Francisco, along withJoan Brown,Bruce Conner,Jay DeFeo, and other artists. In October 1955, he helped organize "6 Poets at 6 Gallery"Six Gallery reading, a landmarkBeat era event whereAllen Ginsberg gave the first public reading ofHowl. In 1959, Neri was an original member ofBruce Conner'sRat Bastard Protective Association.^[4] In the 1960s, he was associated with theBay Area Figurative Movement. He was married to Bay Area artistJoan Brown from 1962 to 1966, though their relationship and artistic collaboration dated back several years prior to this.^[5]

Neri taught sculpture and ceramics at California School of Fine Arts from 1959 to 1965, and taught classes in the art department atUC Berkeley in 1963–1964. He was a member of the art department faculty at theUniversity of California, Davis from 1965 to 1990.^[3]

In 2006, Neri was a recipient of theInternational Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture. In 2008 he received the Bay Area Treasure Award from theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Previous awards include aGuggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1979),National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grant (1980),American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Academy-Institute Award in Art (1982),San Francisco Arts Commission Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sculpture (1985), andOrange County Museum of Art Distinguished Artist Award (Newport Beach, CA, 1999). He received Honorary Doctorates from theSan Francisco Art Institute (1990),California College of Arts and Crafts (1992), and The Corcoran School of Art, Washington, D.C. (1995).^[6]

Neri created figurative sculptures in plaster, marble, bronze, and clay, their surfaces often sanded, chipped, or painted as a means of directing the gestural thrust.^[7] From the late 1970s on he also worked in marble and created numerous figures, torsos, and heads at his studio inCarrara.

He is also noted for his work a draftsman and a collaborator on artists' books. His books include three collaborations with poet Mary Julia Klimenko, and a series of unique books that combine his original drawings with poetry byPablo Neruda,Federico García Lorca, andW.S. Merwin.^[8]

Neri's early works included paintings and mixed-media sculptures based on abstracted figurative or architectural forms.^[9] He has received sculpture commissions from the Office of the State Architect, State of California, for the Bateson Building, Sacramento, California (1980-1982); U.S. General Services Administration for the U.S. Courthouse, Portland, Oregon (1987); Laumeier Sculpture Park, Sunset Hills, Missouri (1994); Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, for the Gerdin Building (2003); St. Anne's Church, Seattle, Washington (2003), and others. Neri's work is represented by Hackett Mill Gallery, San Francisco, California; Robischon Gallery, Denver, Colorado; and Yares Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Palm Springs California, and New York City, New York.

Museums holding works by Manuel Neri include the Addison Gallery/Phillips Academy; Anderson Collection at Stanford University;Art Institute of Chicago; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University;Cincinnati Art Museum; Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum, Clarinda, Iowa;Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA;Denver Art Museum;Des Moines Art Center;^[10]DiRosa, Napa, California;El Museo Mexicano, San Francisco;El Paso Museum of Art, Texas;Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco;Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan;Fresno Art Museum;Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey;Grove Isle Sculpture Garden, Coconut Grove, FL;Harvard University Art Museums;Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.;Honolulu Museum of Art;Indianapolis Museum of Art;Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO;Laumeier Sculpture Park, Sunset Hills, Mo.;Manetti Shrem Museum, University of California, Davis;Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee;Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;Minneapolis Institute of Art;Nasher Museum at Duke University, Durham, NC;Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas;National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC;Nevada Museum of Art, Reno;Oakland Museum of California;Palm Springs Art Museum, California;Phillips Collection, Washington, DC;Phoenix Art Museum;Portland Art Museum, Oregon;Racine Art Museum;San Antonio Museum of Art;San Diego Museum of Art;San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;San Jose Museum of Art, California;Seattle Art Museum;^[11]Tampa Museum of Art;Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive;^[12] University of New Mexico Fine Arts Center, Albuquerque; University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames;Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;Yale University Art Gallery, and New Haven, Connecticut.

Manuel Neri had several marriages; he was the second husband of painterJoan Brown from 1962 to 1966 (though their relationship and artistic collaboration dated back several years prior to that).^[13] He has seven children: Raoul, Laticia, Noel (his son by Joan Brown),^[14] Max, Ruby, Julia, and Gus.^[15] He died on October 18, 2021, inSacramento, California, at the age of 91.^[1][16]

• Albright, Thomas (1985).Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–1980. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN 0-520-05193-9.
• Cancel, Luis R.; et al. (1988).The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920–1970. Bronx: Bronx Museum of the Arts and Harry N. Abrams.ISBN 0-8109-1271-6.
• Cowart, Jack; Amerson, Price (1994).Manuel Neri: A Sculptor's Drawings. Washington, DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art.ISBN 0-88675-041-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Cowart, Jack; Amerson, Price; Beardsley, John; Geldzahler, Henry; Pincus, Robert (1996).Manuel Neri: Early Work 1953–1978. Washington, DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art.ISBN 0-88675-046-6.
• Cowart, Jack (2001).Manuel Neri: Paintings and Painted Papers. Washington, DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art.ISBN 0-88675-064-4.
• Geldzahler, Henry (1993).Manuel Neri: Sculpture, Painted and Unpainted. Bridgehampton, NY: Dia Center for the Arts.ASIN B000L9JN5I.OCLC 30866519.
• Guenther, Bruce (1994).The Essential Gesture. Newport Beach, CA: Newport Harbor Art Museum.ISBN 0-917493-21-4.
• Herskovic, Marika (2009).Abstract and Figurative Expressionism: Style is Timely Art is Timeless. New York School Press. pp. 180–183.ISBN 978-0-9677994-2-1.
• Jones, Caroline A. (1989).Bay Area Figurative Art: 1950–1965. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN 0-520-06842-4.
• Neubert, George (1976).Manuel Neri, Sculptor. Oakland, CA: The Oakland Museum.LCCN 76-40536.OCLC 7614261.
• Nixon, Bruce (2012).Things That Dream: Contemporary Calligraphic Artists' Books/Cosas que sueñan: Libros de artistas caligráficos contemporáneos (in English and Spanish). Stanford, CA: Stanford University.ISBN 978-0-911221-48-0.
• Nixon, Bruce (2005).Manuel Neri: Painted Bronzes and Plasters. San Francisco, CA: Hackett Freedman Gallery.ISBN 1-933399-00-7.
• Nixon, Bruce (2005).Manuel Neri: Artists' Books/The Collaborative Process. San Francisco and New York: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in association with Hudson Hills Press.ISBN 1-55595-261-5.
• Nixon, Bruce (2006).Manuel Neri: The Figure in Relief. Hamilton, NJ; Portland, OR; San Jose, CA: Grounds for Sculpture; Portland Art Museum; San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, in association with Hudson Hills Press.ISBN 1-883124-26-3.
• Nixon, Bruce (2017).Manuel Neri: Matters of Form & Construction. Ames and Clarinda, Iowa: Iowa State University Museums and Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum.
• Nixon, Bruce (2017).Manuel Neri & The Assertion of Modern Figurative Sculpture. Stanford, CA: Anderson Collection/Stanford University Press.ISBN 978-1-5036-0548-0.
• Paz, Octavio; Beardsley, John; Livingston, Jane (1987).Hispanic Art in the United States. New York: Abbeville Press.ISBN 0-89659-688-5.
• Plagens, Peter (1974).Sunshine Muse. New York: Praeger Publishers.ISBN 0-520-22392-6.
• Quirarte, Jacinto (1973).Mexican American Artists. Austin: University of Texas Press.ISBN 0-292-75048-X.
• Reynolds, Jock (2018).Manuel Neri: The Human Figure in Plaster and on Paper. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery.ISBN 978-0-300-23302-5.
• Williams, Thomas (2013).The Bay Area School: Californian Artists of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. London: Lund Humphries.ISBN 978-1-84822-123-9.
• Whitcomb, Laura (2021).DILEXI a Gallery & Beyond. Los Angeles: Label Curatorial.ISBN 978-0-578-99535-9.

• Ventana al Pacifico (1989), Portland, Oregon

• Oral history interview atArchives of American Art

• 1930 births
• 2021 deaths
• 20th-century American painters
• 20th-century American printmakers
• 20th-century American sculptors
• 20th-century American male artists
• 21st-century American painters
• American artists of Mexican descent
• American male painters
• American male sculptors
• Artists from San Francisco
• California College of the Arts alumni
• City College of San Francisco alumni
• San Francisco Art Institute alumni
• University of California, Davis faculty
• American modern sculptors
• People from Sanger, California
• San Francisco Art Institute faculty
• Sculptors from California
• Funk art movement artists

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• CS1 maint: location missing publisher
• CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)