Alice Neel

Commissioned by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel P. Mandell for the Sacred Arts Committee of the Congress, Washington, D.C. in 1976

Philadelphia, Civic Center, Forty-First International Eucharistic Congress Exhibit, August 1976

Patricia Hills, Alice Neel, New York 1983, p. 176, illustrated
Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art; Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Denver, Denver Museum of Art, Alice Neel, 2000, p. 66, illustrated
Phoebe Hoban, Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, New York 2010
Andrew D. Hottle, The Art of the Sister Chapel: Exemplary Women, Visionary Creators, and Feminist Collaboration, Surrey 2014, p. 145, illustrated

With a practice spanning over 60 years, Alice Neel was one of the foremost American portraitists and is regarded today as one of the most engaging painters of the twentieth century. Throughout her career, Neel relentlessly challenged the artistic conventions of her time and pursued a career as a figurative painter when her contemporaries favoured increasingly abstract modes of expression. Choosing subjects from her immediate surroundings, Neel portrayed family – including her lovers and their own families – friends, and those who lived around her or shared her social and political views. Her choice of subjects, and a unique gift to capture them beyond their mere appearances, enabled the artist to portray not only those close to her but to capture the spirit of the times she lived in. For Neel “painting portraits was a form of ‘writing history’ and of recording the data of a recognizable moment in time. For her, portraits not only captured body, posture and physiognomy of individuals; they ‘embodied the character of an era’.” (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Painted Truths: The Human Race Torn to Pieces: The Portraits of Alice Neel, p. 24). 

A great admirer of the work of Edvard Munch and Otto Dix, Neel used in her work a similar Expressionistic technique, through which her own feelings, or those of her sitters, were transposed into the work via the use of a particular texture and colour palette. Neel’s portraits thus provide a poignant and powerful insight into the artist’s own biography. The artist herself explained how “I am never arbitrary. Before painting I talk to my sitters and they unconsciously assume their most typical pose – which, in a way involved all their character and social standing; what the world has done to them and their retaliation. What I feel, what I think, and my involvement with the sitter all comes out in the painting. I like it to look spontaneous, not labored” (Phoebe Hoban, Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, New York, 2010, p. 305).

The two portraits shown in this exhibition offer two very different aspects of Neel’s oeuvre. Richard, from 1973, depicts the artist’s son, who was born from her relationship with singer Jose Santiago Negron. A grown man by the date of execution of the present work, Richard appears here, however, only partly covered, in what could be seen as a very vulnerable position in front of the viewer. Neel’s brushstrokes contour her son’s figure, and delicate washes of blues and purples add weight and body to the portrait. Looking somewhere outside the canvas, Richard transmits indeed a sense of calm intimacy that corroborates the artist’s own description of her practice. On the other hand, Archbishop Jean Jadot is perhaps a seemingly atypical choice of subject for the artist. Painted in 1976, however, the portrait shares with Richard the same stylistic treatment of the figure and colour but, more importantly, it conveys the same sense of intimacy and profound observation as the artist’s portrait of her son. The portrait was in fact commissioned through art critic Victoria Donhoe, who was the head of the committee that selected the works for the Liturgical Arts Show that was organised in conjunction with the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in 1976. Despite coming from very different backgrounds - Neel, a believer in Socialism and openly left-wing, and Jadot, a man of the Church and of much more conservative views - the pair enjoyed their time together during the sittings, with Neel explaining later how he was a progressive character.

Both works, each in their own way, are great examples of Neel’s insightful mind, powerful reflections of the sitters, and the artist’s personae.