Alice Neel

Self Portrait, 1980, oil on canvas

Alice Neel (1900-1984) was an American painter who spent decades painting in obscurity in New York City. In recent decades she has been celebrated and exhibited but in the early decades of the 20th century she was clearly out of step with abstraction and the various other movements that gained attention. Instead she pursued her own path, painting landscapes, still life, and mostly people in her individual and distinctive style. 

Ms. Neel was born in Pennsylvania in 1900, a time when women were expected to marry, bear children, and maintain a home, but her ambition in life was always art. After high school, she worked as a civil service clerk fo several years to assist her parents, but in 1921 she enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women where she was an apt student and was influenced by Robert Henri, who taught there. During her student years she met Carlos Enriquez, a Cuban painter, whom she married in 1925

"Well Baby Clinic," 1929

after graduation. The couple soon moved to Havana, where she bore a daughter, Santillana. She and Carlos returned to New York within the year, where her daughter died of diphtheria. A second daughter, Isabella (called Isabetta) was born in 1928. Influenced by the Cuban avant-garde as well as the death of her first child, Ms. Neel's work thereafter was infused with themes of loss, fear, motherhood and a deep abiding interest in individuals. Her horrific view of hospitals is evident in "Well Baby Clinic," based on the birth of Isabetta. In 1930 Carlos returned to Cuba with the stated intention of obtaining sufficient money from his parents to move the family to Paris. He took Isabetta with him but did not return and instead settled in Cuba. It would be several years before he returned with Isabetta and then only for a short period. In reaction Ms. Neel had a serious psychiatric issues requiring hospitalization. After almost a year she left the hospital and after staying briefly with her parents and others she returned to New York City.

In New York she worked hard painting individuals of all kinds and became an artist for the Works Progress Administration, a public works program instituted to provide work for many of the millions of unemployed (they built bridges, roads, and public buildings, to name a few), and it was during that period that she gained a bit of recognition for her work. Unfortunately, much of that work was destroyed by a disgruntled lover. 

"Portrait of Ethel Ashton," 1930

During the 1930s Ms. Neel began painting female nudes with the idea that the female body had been idealized and sexualized by the male gaze, to the detriment of women. Instead of strictly realistic paintings she began to rely of vibrant color, expressive gesture, and a psychologic penetration she felt were missing from the male gaze. One of the first such works is a nude of Ethel Ashton, a fellow painter and school friend. In it, she employed an unusual viewpoint and a dull, nearly monochrome palette. The sitter seems abashed, vulnerable, and afraid, her body cascading downward. When it was exhibited more than four decades afterward it was roundly criticized for departing from the
"standards" of female nudes. Nonetheless, Ms. Neel continued to paint with the same penetrating insight and style for the remainder of her career. But it was more than twenty years afterward before she received much public recognition. In the interim, she lived in penury while painting continuously. 

Portrait of Frank O'Hara, 1960

It was only in the 1960s that her work gained wider acceptance. Her interest in character was clear in two portraits of a New York poet named Frank O'Hara. The first (now in the National Portrait Gallery) is a good likeness in profile, with his prominent nose and forehead well-drawn. The second, though, is considerably less flattering, if more penetrating. Both gained her notice in print during the decade, and appreciation of her work began to increase. During her latter years, Ms. Neel painted many people from her neighborhood but also famous sitters. She also painted nudes of pregnant women, seeking, she said, to show a part of life that had been ignored, calling others who had avoided the subject "sissies." 

"Pregnant Maria," 1964

For the rest of her career, Ms. Neel worked hard to show what she called "the basic facts of life," unblushing and straightforward. In her 1970 unflinching portrait of Andy Warhol (below) she depicted the by-then mega-famous artist nude from the waist up, complete with his surgical scars from a gunshot wound of several years earlier and the corset he had to wear for the remainder of his life.

"Andy Warhol," 1970

If you aren't familiar with her work, I urge you to take time to see it now, and also take time to view the video below. She was certainly not a sissie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Alice Neel Primer (Met Museum)