Nathan Oliveira
Nathan Oliveira (1928-) , a significant and famed Bay Area painter, printmaker, and sculptor is noted for compositions complex in figure/ground relationships with emphasis on the human form, poised 
in space. While linked to the Bay Area Figurative painters of the 1950s and 1960s. Oliveira's unique work is infused with existentialist expressionism and emotional intensity. These artistic endeavors in his words, "make a spiritual contribution.”
Nathan Oliveira began working with sculpture in the 1980s, drawing from realms from Pre-Columbian iconography to 20th-century modern works, notably including Giacommetti as well as Northern European expressionism, such as Edward Munch and Max Beckmann, with whom Oliveira studied at Mills College, Oakland, in 1950.
Born in Oakland, in the early fifties Oliveira attended the California College of Arts and Crafts. In 1956, Oliveira started teaching at CCAC and also at the California School of Fine Arts and later moved to Stanford University in 1966 where he is a Professor Emeritus. Among the numerous grants and awards received, Oliveira was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and is a recipient of the Commander of the Order of Henry the Navigator, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Republic of Portugal, for contributions to Portuguese culture.
Nathan Oliveira's work is held in numerous major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim Museum, New 
York; the Tate Gallery, London; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
1. As quoted in Nathan Oliveira by Peter Selz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) p. 131.
2. Walter Smith: "Nathan Oliveira" Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, [9/30/2006],
3. Ibid.
Alan Osborne and Nathan Oliveira at the Art Foundry, 2007
