Nathan Oliveira (December 19, 1928 – November 13, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to immigrant Portuguese parents.

The exhibition was accompanied by a monograph, Nathan Oliveira, by Selz, with an introduction by Susan Landauer and an essay by Joann Moser, published by the University of California Press.

Prior to and during his years in art college, he viewed and was influenced by retrospectives of the European Expressionist masters Oskar Kokoschka, Edvard Munch, and Max Beckmann at the M.H.

Over time his subjects and style varied tremendously, as he created images of animals, birds of prey, human heads, masks, nudes, and still lifes of fetish objects.

[9] Most of the artist's paintings are either vividly colored but somber human figures, or abstract expressionist works that vaguely resemble seascapes.

Oliveira was especially noted for his work in the monotype medium, in which single printed impressions are made from a painting executed on a metal plate.

[12] A 1960 oil painting by Nathan Oliveira, Seated Figure with Pink Background, sold for $317,500 (including buyer's premium) at Sotheby's New York on November 12, 2002.

[13] During the 1990s Oliveira worked on a series of paintings of catenary curves based on observation of the flight of birds, including kestrels that had hovered outside the windows of his studio in the Stanford Hills.

The center, intended to provide Stanford faculty, staff and students with a place to reflect and meditate, was envisioned by Oliveira and his wife Ramona prior to their deaths.