His colors were way too garish for my taste, but the guy at least could draw.
Read that article I linked to. From a craft standpoint, he was not really well-regarded.
I love the line in there about how he was “all frosting and no cake.”
Nagel was also the Duran Duran Girl chap - he did the cover of Rio and died young. His style is very much of its time but I wouldn’t put him in the same category as the other kitsch artists on this thread, because he seemed technically clever, and I never had a sense that he sold himself as a pompous fine artist. Truly kitsch artists think that they’re creating works of genius for the ages, or at least give the impression etc even if they don’t believe it, whereas Nagel knew he was a clever illustrator who did chic portraits of square-jawed early-80s models. And there was a chance he might have progressed. It’d’ve been fascinating to see him do a Judge Dredd strip. Just to see his take on Judge Anderson. Cor.
As for Neiman, the two things that leap out at me from this portrait of Sylvester Stallone from Rocky III are (a) the disproportionately large double signature and (b) he couldn’t draw faces. Same with JFK above. That’s not JFK’s face. It’s barely even a face.
The British equivalent is (clicks fingers) bearded chap. Paints himself into his paintings. Wears hippy clothes. Gives the outward impression that he’s in love with the world but, like all hippies, he’s probably an awful monster in reality. (clicks fingers) Escapes my mind. Problem is that if I Google for “awful british painter successful” the only results I get back are Damien Hirst, who couldn’t possibly be bad because he features regularly in The Guardian. They ignore bad artists, they don’t write about them constantly.