Worked in plaster, clay, bronze and marble, Manuel Neri’s sculpture reflects an interest in classical form and contemporary approach.
By: Megan Sullivan
After signing up for a ceramics class as a community college student, Manuel Neri never looked back. Today, the 76-year-old California sculptor has works in collections at the Corcoran Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, to name a few.
He has been awarded many prizes, including a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grant, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Art. His works in plaster, ceramic, bronze and stone have merited him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center this year.
The artist still spends several days a week in his studio in Benicia, Calif. (where he’s lived and worked since 1964), and plans to continue working as long as possible. He also has a studio and apartment in Carrara, Italy, where he works on marble sculptures each year.
An exhibition of relief sculptures and related drawings by Mr. Neri, Manuel Neri: The Figure in Relief, is on view in Grounds For Sculpture’s museum in Hamilton through April 29.
"This extensive body of work is clearly grounded in a long sculptural tradition that stretches back through the Renaissance and medieval sculpture to ancient architectural sites, and underscores Neri’s significance as a sculptor of international note…" writes GFS Director/Curator Brooke Barrie in the exhibition catalog’s foreword.
In Mr. Neri’s relief sculptures, parts of the human figure may project from the wall-like surface, while others might remain anchored and melded into the background. "The relief motif has a long tradition in sculpture," Mr. Neri writes in an e-mail interview. "Its main interest for me is the way you can control the setting for the figure, like the background of a drawing."
A number of bronze sculptures from Mr. Neri’s Mujer Pegada Series are on view during the exhibit, showing various positions of the figure in relief and the emotions they can convey. In "Mujer Pegada Series No. 6," the figure turns into the relief surface, the left side of the body sinking into the backdrop. The figure appears as if it’s gazing out a window, lost in thought. In contrast, the figural form in "Mujer Pegada Series No. 3" is in high relief. While the left arm is melded into the surface, the rest of the body breaks away from the wall, the head turned and shoulders broadened, emanating beauty and strength.
Also on view are a couple of relief works from the parallel series, Arcos de Geso, in plaster. While Mr. Neri is equally comfortable working with plaster as with clay, bronze and marble, it’s said his affinity for plaster is unrivaled. "Well, initially I was attracted to (plaster) because it was cheap," he admits. "I really love its malleability and how you can continually add to or subtract from the sculpture until the figure has all the right tensions to hold its space."
Other featured works include bronze, ceramic and plaster maquettes and bronze reliefs from Mr. Neri’s Maha series, and a number of his study drawings. "Drawing and painting, for me, can be used either to get ideas down on paper," he says, "or also as works of art, where I use color and composition to communicate emotion."
The artist also has made free-standing figures since the mid-1950s (a couple are on view during the exhibit), but all along has developed his ideas about the figure in an environment. "With free-standing figures, you are always at the mercy of the surroundings that become a visual static that makes it hard to concentrate solely on the figure," he says. "By making the figure and its surroundings a single unit, you can control the spatial environment."
The surfaces of Mr. Neri’s pieces are often distressed and textured, the faceless human figures conveying expressions only through the position of their bodies. "As an artist, I have to do something to create a visual tension of the sculptural forms, and I need to move beyond replicating figure, or creating a mannequin," Mr. Neri says. "There’s nothing more boring than the highly articulated realistic smooth surfaces of Victorian sculpture.
"In many cases the facial expressions can be read as too specific and related to a personality," he adds, "while the gestures conveyed through body language are more effective in expressing larger concerns."
Color is also used as a vehicle to move the eye around the sculpture, the paint magnifying the variable surface textures. "I love the way that color and form can come together to convey an emotional state," he says. "For example, using greens and blues can make a sculpture feel more reserved, while reds and yellows create a feeling of energy and excitement."
As far as artistic influences, Mr. Neri was always drawn to the sculptures of Swiss surrealist painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti. "Even though I had a letter of introduction, I stood in front of his door on my first visit to Paris and didn’t have the nerve to knock," Mr. Neri says. Other influences include Italian expressionist sculptor Marino Marini and Japanese-born American abstract expressionist sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Born in 1930 near Sanger, Calif., Mr. Neri’s roots were in Mexico (his parents moved to the U.S. in 1924 for political reasons). While Mr. Neri’s work is in some ways influenced by his roots, he says no more so than his experiences seeing great sculptures of classical civilizations. This is in addition to seeing the great architectural sites of Mexico and Central America, the pyramids and stelae and the power of the Nazca lines in Peru.
After graduating high school, Mr. Neri continued his education at San Francisco City College, where he took that fateful ceramics course. His discovery of sculpture led to studies at the California College of Arts and Crafts and the California School of Fine Arts. He became a teacher at CSFA from 1959 to 1964 and was later appointed professor of art at the University of California, Davis, in 1976, working there until his retirement in 1990.
Since 1972, Mary Julia Klimenko has been Mr. Neri’s model and collaborator. He first saw Ms. Klimenko at a party and "was really struck by her presence, and how her body language was so expressive of her internal state," he says. "Thirty-four years later, we’re still working together, and she continues to inspire me with her gestural body language and the depth of her intelligence."
Although many of Mr. Neri’s sculptures are female, mainly because he’s worked with Ms. Klimenko for so many years, he says they are more about human concerns and issues, rather than male or female. "After I started working with Mary Julia, I realized that with the figure I’d found the perfect vehicle for conveying internal emotional states," he says, "and I still haven’t exhausted the possibilities."
Manuel Neri: The Figure in Relief is on view in the museum at Grounds For Sculpture,
18 Fairgrounds Road, Hamilton, through April 29. Hours: Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Park admission: Tues.-Thurs. $5, $4 seniors/students, $1 under age 13; Fri.-Sat.
$8, $7 seniors/students, $4 under age 13; Sun. $12; members free. For information,
call (609) 586-0616. GFS on the Web: www.groundsforsculpture.org