Blue Nude on Horseback
oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
Provenance:
the artist to a colleague at J. Walter Thompson Company, New York;
by descent to his son, the present owner
Raised in Arizona, Andy Nelson was influenced from an early age by the Native American culture of his surroundings and classmates. He won a scholarship to Cooper Union School of Art, and from there his creativity led him to the advertising world in New York, before WWII interrupted his career. After the war, he began working for the prestigious J. Walter Thompson Company, eventually becoming senior vice president and creative director. He also continued to paint, and by the 1960s, his work was becoming increasingly abstract. Interior designer Arthur Elrod became enamored of his work, and through him, he was collected by a number of Hollywood’s stars at the time. After leaving the advertising world, he lived and worked in Arizona, incorporating many references to a spiritual connection to the desert and to Native American culture. Nelson had solo exhibitions in Los Angeles at the Ankrum Gallery, as well as several at La Quinta Arts Foundation in Arizona. His work is in numerous corporate and private collections, as well as in the permanent collection of the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.