Peter Nagy (artist)



Peter Nagy (born 1959) is an American artist known for his post-conceptual art of the 1980s and as an active art gallerist. He is the owner of Gallery Nature Morte, which was founded in New York City's East Village in 1982 and was part of the Collins & Milazzo exhibitions sensual conceptualism scene. It closed in 1988, and in 1992, Nagy moved to New Delhi, India, where Gallery Nature Morte is now located.

Early life
Nagy was born in 1959 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He studied at the Parsons School of Design, receiving a degree in communication design in 1981.

Career as gallerist
With artist Alan Belcher, Nagy opened Gallery Nature Morte in East Village, Manhattan, in 1982. Nagy was part of a generation of East Village artist/gallery owners who established a small but trendy avant-garde alternative to the established SoHo art scene. The gallery was open for six years, until 1988. It combined conceptualism and pop art, exploring the relationship between art and commodity.

In 1992, Nagy moved to New Delhi, where he revived Gallery Nature Morte in 1997. Indian artist Subodh Gupta has said of him: "he has fresh eyes and has provided a platform for contemporary artists." In 2021, the gallery opened two additional exhibition spaces in the Indian capital.

Art career
In the early 1980s, Nagy became known for works he created by mixing painting techniques with the technology of Xerox photocopy machines. One series executed during this period, International Survey Condominiums, used photocopying as a tool to combine timelines of art history with the floor plans of art museums.

Nagy's work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 2014, Eisbox Projects published an exhaustive account of Nagy's work by Richard Milazzo in the book Peter Nagy, Entertainment Erases History – Works 1982 to 2004 to the Present.

In 2020, Deitch Projects held a retrospective exhibition in New York City of Nagy's works from the 1980s.

His work is exhibited at the New York gallery Magenta Plains.