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Born on January 28, 1900, in Merion Square, Pennsylvania, Alice Neel grew up in Colwyn. She attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) from 1921 to 1925, when she married Cuban artist Carlos Enriquez and moved to Cuba. In the early 1930's Neel returned to New York.
In 1932 Neel began work at a feverish pitch, painting the city and its inhabitants. Her subjects often included friends, family and neighbors, always in a dynamic and personal style. During these early years, 1933 to 1943, Alice Neel worked for the Federal Art Project of the WPA and became a staunch supporter of social and cultural reform. This commitment strengthened her personal dedication to portray individuals from all walks of life and document their personal struggles. Her portraits offer a poignant record of those struggles and of the ambitions found in modern American urban society during the middle decades of the twentieth century.
Although she also painted still lifes and landscapes, Neel is primarily known for her expressive portraits of the human condition. These portraits are characterized by strong, near grotesque elements that Neel witnessed. She was quoted as saying "I love to paint people torn by all the things that they are torn by today in the rat race in New York."
One of Neel's masterpieces and most recognized works is entitled "T.B. Harlem," painted in 1940. It was, and is, considered a major social document of its time and chronicles tuberculosis, a disease frequently found in the tenements of the urban ghetto. It is unrelenting in its depiction of a pain-stricken young male, one in whom Neel was to take a lifelong interest. Dark outlines depict a somber, skeletal form ravaged by severe illness, a portrayal that reveals a combination of beauty and horror that she found manifest in everyday life.
Neel used her artistic talent to reveal the individual personalities of her subjects. As an artist, she longed to create an "historical epoch" (age) on canvas in her belief that "Art is a form of history." Neel's work focused on her life experiences--pregnancy, birth and death. As a result, motherhood, children, couples and nudes were themes that dominate her work.
It seems that Alice Neel felt more apathy for the unfortunate than one might realize. She personally suffered a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, and was hospitalized over several months during 1930 and 1931, all of which had an influence on her work. During this time, her work took on a renewed passion and this, combined with a newly assumed attitude of defying convention, defined her vision over the next five decades. But she always remained consistent in her ambition to represent a vast array of human subjects, including friends and relatives in Greenwich Village and Spanish Harlem, artists and writers, mothers and children, family members and political figures.
The mother of two daughters and two sons, Alice Neel had her share of unpleasant relationships, personal hardships and tragedy--failed romances, loss of an infant daughter, deaths of both parents, and a sensitivity to other's suffering--that tainted her creativity. But, in spite of--or perhaps because of--this sensitivity, she was able to capture and convey a real understanding of life. When one views her work, it is hard to ignore her insight and the depth with which she "sees" her subjects. The observer easily absorbs this personal connection and reverence of common things.Not until the 1960's did a 60-year-old Neel begin to receive national attention. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a major retrospective of her portraits in 1974, and she was elected to the American Academy of Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976. President Jimmy Carter honored Neel with a National Women's Caucus for Art Award in 1979.
“Alice Neel” is at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, through September 17 and then travels to the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, from Oct. 7 to Dec. 31, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. This retrospective exhibition of 70 paintings plus many works on paper is an American treasure. How fitting it will be to celebrate the centennial of Alice Neel, who was born and raised in the suburbs and educated at the former School of Design for Women, right in Philadelphia. Paintings included in this grand exhibition will present a much-deserved reconsideration of Alice Neel's powerful and provocative work and offer a full examination of her artistic development. The exhibit includes works that span the years 1932 to 1983, the year before her death, and is headlined by a 1980 self-portrait.
Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 10 No. 11 -- September 2000