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Patrick Nagel and Michael Jackson
On August 11, 2009, I sent a letter to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee nominating the art of Patrick Nagel to be commemorated on a set of stamps, which included these comments:
“Patrick Nagel, 1945-1984, was an American artist whose simple, bold renderings of the female form were reminiscent of both Art Deco style and Japanese woodblock prints. He is well known for his contributions to Playboy magazine and the cover design of the Duran Duran Rio album . . . Nagel posters have been collected by the Library of Congress, the Oakland Museum, and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at U.C.L.A. Permanent collections of his work are also housed at the Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the Smithsonian Institution.”
A few days later I received a letter, dated August 20, from Terrence W. McCaffrey, Manager, Stamp Development, which informed me that my “proposal will be submitted for review and consideration before the Committee.” The committee receives about 50,000 letters a year. I had beaten the odds and jumped the first hurdle in the stamp approval process. Alas, nothing more came of my proposal.
At the time, there also was some clamor for a stamp to honor the recently deceased performer Michael Jackson. Both Jackson and Nagel reached their creative peaks in the 1980s.
Undoubtedly, Jackson saw some of Nagel’s work. Nagel’s signature style — pure white skin and a barely defined nose — suddenly had a new significance. Michael Jackson may have reshaped his face and changed its color in a desire to resemble a Patrick Nagel poster girl.
My suspicions were confirmed more than a decade later when I ran across a February 15, 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter that stated, "His [Nagel’s] dealer remembered one of Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeons quizzing the artist — who was informed by Deco as well as Japanese woodblock prints — about how he achieved his idealized physical forms."
On August 11, 2009, I sent a letter to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee nominating the art of Patrick Nagel to be commemorated on a set of stamps, which included these comments:
“Patrick Nagel, 1945-1984, was an American artist whose simple, bold renderings of the female form were reminiscent of both Art Deco style and Japanese woodblock prints. He is well known for his contributions to Playboy magazine and the cover design of the Duran Duran Rio album . . . Nagel posters have been collected by the Library of Congress, the Oakland Museum, and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at U.C.L.A. Permanent collections of his work are also housed at the Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the Smithsonian Institution.”
A few days later I received a letter, dated August 20, from Terrence W. McCaffrey, Manager, Stamp Development, which informed me that my “proposal will be submitted for review and consideration before the Committee.” The committee receives about 50,000 letters a year. I had beaten the odds and jumped the first hurdle in the stamp approval process. Alas, nothing more came of my proposal.
At the time, there also was some clamor for a stamp to honor the recently deceased performer Michael Jackson. Both Jackson and Nagel reached their creative peaks in the 1980s.
Undoubtedly, Jackson saw some of Nagel’s work. Nagel’s signature style — pure white skin and a barely defined nose — suddenly had a new significance. Michael Jackson may have reshaped his face and changed its color in a desire to resemble a Patrick Nagel poster girl.
My suspicions were confirmed more than a decade later when I ran across a February 15, 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter that stated, "His [Nagel’s] dealer remembered one of Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeons quizzing the artist — who was informed by Deco as well as Japanese woodblock prints — about how he achieved his idealized physical forms."
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Images: Banner, Weebly/Square stock image; Michael Jackson and Patrick Nagel poster, fair use