Jorge Nadal was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on April 23, 1946 and spent much of his childhood in Ramey, former military base in the Island’s northwestern town of Aguadilla. When he was 12 years old his family moved to Zaragoza, Spain, where he lived for three years. Nadal started drawing early in his life and after graduating from high school he decided to pursue art as a career. He studied Comm
ercial Design at Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, Florida and after graduating; he worked for several of the most important advertising agencies of Puerto Rico’s metropolitan area. In 1974 he abandoned advertising and moved to the western tip of the Island to dedicate himself fully to his art. His first works were of a surrealist style, influenced by the paintings of Rene Magritte, Girgio DeChirico and Salvador Dalí. During the eighties he managed to have his own art space, which included a silk-screen studio. He quickly became very popular with his limited-edition serigraphs, creating local scenery and posters for various local entities and art fairs. In 1987 Nadal introduced his Three Wise Men; limited edition hand-pulled serigraphs. For seven consecutive years he produced a new edition of the Wise Men and in 1997, UNICEF recognized his work and selected one of the designs for a Christmas card that was marketed worldwide. By that same time his tropical foliage paintings were becoming larger and more intense; it was obvious that Nadal was commencing to forge his own, unique style. “The Cry of the Jungle” was the name of his jungle series, which he presented in 1992. These were exhibited at a prestigious West coast hotel and brought the artist much acclaim from a public that started following his work. Shortly after, he immersed in a new project: a pictorial documentation of the Puerto Rican Jíbaros (people of the interior mountainous regions of Puerto Rico) that he named “Life Among the Puerto Rican Jíbaros in Their Final Days of Glory”. In 1994, the artist decided to move with his family to California’s wine country. Once settled, he managed to show his art in the Napa Valley Wine Auction of 1995. That same year, he paid homage to Californian winemakers with his popular limited-edition serigraph “The winemaker’s Choice”, which was chosen to become a wine label for Graeser Winery in Calistoga, CA. During the time he spent in California, Nadal created a large number of commissioned works, which included portraits and landscapes of the wine country’s vineyards in northern California. He also rediscovered one of his lifetime passions: Jazz. From April 1999 to April 2000, the artist let the music rhythms influence his style until he finished his jazz series that included colorful and large oil paintings, which portrayed jazz musicians. Nadal returned to Puerto Rico in 2005 at a time in which he was transitioning from realism to a more dynamic and loose style that inclined towards the abstract. Since then, he has further developed the tropical jungle theme reflecting Puerto Rico’s exotic foliage. Most of the artist’s paintings are part of private collections found in Puerto Rico, the United Stated, Canada, Australia, Spain, France and Germany. Nadal currently lives in New Orleans. World traveler art connoisseur and art-book author Drew Hammond of New York, said of Nadal’s work: “Nadal’s paintings are strong, dramatic, and emotionally charged, evoking feelings for places we long for. While his warm palette soothes us with its seductive complements, the psychological depth of his graphic compositions stimulates us into spiritual awareness.”
