Please join artist Ron Nagle, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator Apsara DiQuinzio, fellow Curator’s Circle members, and special guests for a reception to celebrate the opening of Ron Nagle: Handsome Drifter, the artist’s first survey in the Bay Area in over twenty-five years.

Renowned for his exceptional mastery of form and color, Nagle has been integral to the evolution of ceramics as a fine art medium, creating exquisite and idiosyncratic small-scale glazed sculptures since the 1950s. In works no taller than a few inches, Nagle mixes allusions to modernism, middlebrow culture, and a Northern California pop sensibility. The sculptures reference art-historical movements ranging from sixteenth-century Japanese Momoyama ceramics to Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and California Light and Space, and such art world luminaries as Giorgio Morandi, Philip Guston, and Joseph Albers. 

Join us for wine and small bites, and the opportunity to preview this elegant, sensual, and playful exhibition. 

Ron Nagle: Handsome Drifter is organized by Apsara DiQuinzio, senior curator of modern and contemporary art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator, with Lucia Olubunmi Momoh, curatorial assistant. The exhibition is made possible with lead support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Matthew Marks Gallery, and Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman. Major support is provided by Joachim and Nancy Hellman Bechtle, Chara Schreyer and Gordon Freund, Robin Wright and Ian Reeves, and Joan Roebuck. Additional support is provided by Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, Alexandra Bowes and Stephen Williamson, Jeffrey Spahn Gallery, the LLWW Foundation, and Dorothy Saxe.