"Untitled (Nude in Chains)." 2004. Oil on paper. Signed and dated on the bottom right.

Matted. 21 x 14 1/2" (sight); 25 x 18 1/2" (overall).

Notes:

Shozo Nagano (1928-2008) was born in Kanazawa, Japan, along the western coast of Honshu. Nagano began his art education shortly after the end of the American occupation of Japan. In 1952, he attended the Kanazawa College of Art studying under the western-style (Yōga) master Kazuya Takamitsu alongside many other famous Japanese modernists such as Norio Azuma.

In 1965, Nagano emigrated to New York City with little to his name, residing in an East Side tenement and studying at the Art Students League and the Pratt Institute. On arrival in New York, Nagano became interested in Christian imagery, particularly images of the crucifixion, and would create a series of homoerotic paintings in reference to the New Testament. Later, during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Nagano would focus on the male body in duress. His new subjects were increasingly sexualized, often engaged in dichotomous scenes of ecstasy and pain. His work included male bodies in the midst of heated embrace, often with their muscles drawn taught against rope and tensioned cloth. Nagano’s figures were gifted with beauty and chiseled forms, but also rendered in a state of surrender to the viewer. His models were in a state of spiritual enlightenment through ecstasy, just as much a tantric model of excellence as a Christly surrogate.

Nothing adverse to note.

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