Manuel Neri and the Assertion of Modern Figurative Sculpture

Book excerpt: The exploration of the human figure has been the pursuit of artists for millennia. Manuel Neri (b. 1930), a California native and former student of Richard Diebenkorn and Nathan Oliveira, has spent a lifetime accentuating the gesture, surface, and materiality of the figure. He renders his work in several different mediums that include plaster, marble, bronze, and paper. This exhibition, drawn from and celebrating gifts donated to the museum by The Manuel Neri Trust, provides a glimpse into the artist's creative process and his quest to define the figure on his own terms. Manuel Neri is known for his prolonged artistic engagement with the figure in a variety of materials, starting with plaster in the late 1950s and moving into bronze and marble. The seven sculptures in the outdoor installation reference Neri's origins with plaster and his expressionistic manipulation of the medium. By casting plaster in bronze, tactile surfaces are preserved and enhanced.