Patrick Nagatani

1945 - 2017

BiographyPatrick Allen Ryiochi Nagatani was born in 1945, Chicago, IL; he died in 2017, Albuquerque, NM. Nagatani was raised and educated in Los Angeles where he worked as a distinguished teacher and artist. During the 10 years between his undergrad and graduate studies, Nagatani worked making special-effects models for the film industry and as a technical draftsman. He taught industrial drafting and photography basics to high school students before applying to a graduate photography program. He received his M.F.A. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1979. He worked in project series. Japanese-American Concentration Camps, Nuclear Enchantment, Nagatani-Ryoichi Excavations, and Buddhist Tape-estries are among his
best-known series. Nagatani taught photography at the University of New Mexico 1987-2007 and retired as a professor emeritus in the Department of Art & Art History. Upon his retirement, the university produced a major career retrospective and published a catalogue. He received two major National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships. Some of his awards include: The Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, The Kraszna- Krausz Award for his book Nuclear Enchantment, the Leopold Godowsky Jr. Color Photography Award, the Eliot Porter Fellowship in New Mexico, and the California Distinguished Artist Award from the National Art Education Association. He was an honored recipient of the Governor’s
Award for Excellence in the Arts from Governor Bill Richardson in New Mexico, as well as the Honored Educator Award from the Society of Photographic Education in 2008.

[From Acquisition Rationale, Polly Nordstrand, March 2022]

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