Very sad news: Manuel Neri, the essential and only sculptor of the Bay Area figurative movement, son of Mexican farm workers, influenced by Gen 1 ( Park, Diebenkorn, Oliviera, Bischoff, Weeks) but his own man, husband ( of Joan Brown in early years), roommates with Jay de Feo even earlier, father ( of Ruby Neri) later, has died at 91.

A student of Peter Voulkos, Neri traveled throughout the US with Billy Al Bengston ( what a trip that must have been), was the first person to organize a reading of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, was into Funk art, antiquity and color. He left the figure for a while, explored anew abstraction, got into minimalism, returned to the figure. He mostly devoted himself to the female figure. “I wanted an image that expressed all of mankind and for me the female does that.”

This is a rare painting, Nude Model with Bischoff Painting , 1958, before he had fully given over to sculpture. Don’t you agree he could have gone either way?