"In depicting old age, Neel did not flinch from an honest account of the ravages of time and the presence of death. Arthritic hands, wrinkled faces, exhausted expressions, and sagging protuberances all feature in Neel's portraits of the elderly. Misquoting a statement by Cézanne, she remarked: 'And guess what he said: 'I love to paint people who have grown old naturally in the country.' But you know what I say? 'I love to paint people torn by all the things that they are torn by today in the rat race in New York.'"
Jeremy Lewison, "Showing the Barbarity of Life: Alice Neel's Grotesque," in Exh. Cat., Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Alice Neel: Painted Truths, 2017, p. 51