Advisor, Playboy illustration 1976

Patrick Nagel's Playboy illustration captures a specific moment with clean lines and a bold palette. The way he builds form reminds me of working in layers, each stroke decisive, contributing to the overall image. Look at the dog, the way Nagel uses flat planes of brown and black to create its form. The texture is implied through the strategic placement of highlights and shadows, making the image pop. He reduces everything to these stylized, almost geometric shapes, which is so cool. There is a tension here, it’s like he’s playing with the edge of abstraction. That black outline does a lot of heavy lifting in this piece. Nagel’s aesthetic feels of its time, of course, yet his graphic style is enduring. It calls to mind artists like Alex Katz, who also simplify figures into striking, flattened forms. There's something so seductive about how the essence of a thing is captured with minimal fuss.