Philadelphia, PA
(215) 763-8100
Alice Neel at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Alice Neel's daring portraits of people and
places are among the most insightful images in 20th-century American art.
To celebrate the centennial of her birth, the Philadelphia Museum of Art
has organized Alice Neel, the first full-scale examination of her
inspiring and provocative life and work. Organized with the full cooperation
of the artist's family, this exhibition features 75 paintings and watercolors,
many of which have never been previously exhibited. Alice Neel has
opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (through September
17, 2000) - see The
Art of Alice Neel (6/23/00) and continues its
national tour at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy,
Andover, MA (October 7-December 31, 2000); the Philadelphia Museum of Art
(February 18-April 15, 2001); and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (June
10-September 2, 2001). (left: Last Sickness, 1953, oil on
canvas, 30 x 22 inches, Philadelphia Museum of Art, promised gift of Richard
Neel and Hartley S. Neel)
Born in 1900 in Merion Square (now Gladwyne), near Philadelphia,
Alice Neel led a rich and complicated
life, filled with friends, lovers, family, fellow artists, and a strong
sense of community and social activism. A 1925 graduate of the Philadelphia
School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design), 
Neel
spent a year in Havana, then moved with her husband to New York City, where
she remained the rest of her life. In the 1930s, her subjects included the
colorful Greenwich Village poets and writers, as well as friends and family.
Neel's nude portraits of figures such as her young daughter Isabetta and
the bohemian icon Joe Gould are still audacious. Employed by the W.P.A.
during the Great Depression, Neel painted scenes of the city street that
reflect her trenchant concern for the dispossessed: striking workers, impoverished
families, and the homeless. Among the highlights of Alice Neel are works
from the Depression era that have never been exhibited previously in a museum.
(left: Linda Nochlin and Daisy, 1973, oil on canvas, 55 1/2
x 44 inches, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Seth K. Sweetser Fund)
During the postwar era, when the tide of the art world had turned toward abstraction, Neel remained committed to the representation of the human figure. She was steadfast in depicting the world around her with compassion, acuity and freedom. Neel always displayed her empathy for her subjects -- from her young sons or her dying mother to left-wing activists. Portraits of her neighbors in Spanish Harlem employ humor and insight to great effect -- both tender and unforgiving at once.
In
the early 1960s Neel received her first recognition outside a small circle
of admirers. Her astounding emergence, late in life, corresponded with the
dawning of the women's movement and with the art world's reawakened interest
in the human figure. Neel's work of the next two decades reflects her increasing
celebrity. Her portraits of fellow artists -- including Andy Warhol, Frank
O'Hara, Robert Smithson, and Faith Ringgold -- document a professional world
in which Neel was suddenly a seemingly improbable star. It was during these
years that Neel perfected the style for which she is now best remembered:
large-scale portraits in the realist tradition of Thomas
Eakins and Robert
Henri but newly inventive and unforgettably direct. (left:
Thanksgiving, 1965, oil on canvas, 30 x 34 inches, Collection of
Jonathan Monika Brand, Portland Oregon)
A centennial salute from the artist's native city of Philadelphia, whose culture and Museum she treasured, Alice Neel marks an opportune moment for a first full appraisal. With the new century comes a reevaluation of the modernist canon, which emphasized abstraction often at the expense of adventurous figurative artists. The present-day resurgence of portraiture as a vibrant field for both veteran and emerging artists confirms Alice Neel's ongoing legacy.
Alice
Neel will be accompanied by a fully illustrated
catalogue with essays and entries by Ann Temkin, The Muriel and Philip Berman
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Assistant Curator Susan Rosenberg, and Richard Flood, Chief Curator at the
Walker Art Center. Temkin discusses Neel's interconnection of life and art;
Rosenberg explores Neel's artistic roots in the 1930s; and Flood focuses
on the art-world portraits of the 1960s and '70s. The catalogue also includes
reminiscences by Neel's subjects, and the first detailed chronology of Neel's
life, richly illustrated with many never-before-published photographs.
(left: Robert Smithson, 1962, oil on canvas, 40 x 24 1/4 inches,
Private collection)
Alice Neel was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the support of The William Penn Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Alice's List, a consortium of individual donors. Corporate sponsorship was provided by AT&T.
Please Note: RLM does not endorse sites behind external links. We offer them for your additional research; external links were chosen on the basis of being the most informative online source at the time of our search.
Read more about the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Resource Library Magazine
Be sure to visit more of Resource Library Magazine with museum exhibition news, stories on American art, calendars, and more. Here are links to selected sections of the magazine:
Copyright 1996-2000 Traditional Fine Art Online, Inc. All rights reserved.