Patrick Nagel

The Illustrator who helped Visualize 1980s Pop Culture

Patrick Nagel was born on November 25, 1945, in Dayton, Ohio. After serving with the 101st Airborne for the United States Army during Vietnam, Nagel attended the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) in Los Angeles, California. In 1969, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Fullerton.

In the early 1970s, Nagel found work as a graphic designer and artist for Universal Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, IBM, Harper’s Magazine, Architectural Digest, Rolling Stone, and others in the television, broadcasting, and periodical fields.

Beginning in August of 1975 (some sources say ’74 or ’76), Nagel’s work graced the pages of Playboy Magazine. Over the next nine years, every peruser of Playboy’s pages (for the articles, of course) were often treated with alluring, art-deco-ish, Japanese woodblock print-inspired, “Nagel women”.

Little did Nagel know that a band named after a science fiction villain in a borderline-porn would launch him into the pantheon of 1980s icons.