Context: Alice Neel
The show opened with Neel’s nude self-portrait, painted when she was 80. The dimly lit room was startling, in that it drew your eye more closely to the independently lit works, causing the paintings to appear like a hologram. A bizarre futuristic twist, almost as if Neel was communicating from the grave, in a digital representation.
The paintings are behind glass, which along with the alarm, creating disconnection to the works. It was almost counter to Neel’s works, which explores psychological impact of her subjects and a close connection between her observations and subjects. Once aware of the alarm system I navigated getting as close as I could to see the materiality of the paint on canvas: the greens in her flesh and the twist in her ankle. Neel’s anit-idealizing portraits, which have an intimate feeling exploring the human condition though truth. (Hoban. P, 2021, P, P423)
Alice Neel. Self Portrait, Oil on Canvas, 1980.
Alice Neel, Carmen and Judy, Oil on Canvas, 1972.
The atmosphere of the space upstairs felt melancholic. This surprised me when thinking of the context of these earlier paintings and the revolutionary impact, pushing against the history of the female nude within art. You begin to unravel in Neel’s critical realism: you see her collection of souls. ‘She sought truth in the individual human soul and laid bare whatever mixture of compassion, greed, vanity and despair she found locked within.’ (Hoban. P, 2021, P424)
Alice Neel, James Hunter Black Draftee, Oil on Canvas, 1965
The real take away from this exhibition is how Neel is able to stop when she is painting. How her works can be left ‘unfinished’. For example, James Hunter is left ‘unfinished’ partly due to Neel’s method of painting, and her decision to say ‘it’s finished’ but also her sitter not returning as he had been drafted for the Vietnam War. (The Met, 2023) This is significant, as leaving elements ‘unfinished’ give the viewer a window into process of development. Breaking the painterly magic, of looking at a real person by allowing secretes of the painting process to be seen.
Alice Neel, Andy Warhol, Oil and acrylic on linen, 1970
There is an uneasy tension in her paintings; ‘Nobody is ever quite relaxed in a Neel portrait, no matter how suggestive of relaxation the pose’ (Nochlin. L (2020), P285). This critical realism in Neel’s practice aligns with my own. This notion of truth, and representing elements of another’s truth in portraits. Neel was inspired by Robert Henri’s philosophy of ‘paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you’ (Robert. H (2007) ) P285. Neel’s portrait are reflective of the personal, yet there is a clear political reading, though her choice of who she painted.
Bibliography
Coming. L, The Guardian, Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle; Action, Gesture, Paint – Review. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/19/alice-neel-hot-off-the-griddle-barbican-art-gallery-london-review-action-gesture-paint-women-artists-and-global-abstraction-1940-70-whitechapel-gallery (Accessed: 22/02/2023)
Searle. A, The Guardian, Alice Neel review – sexy, wonky portraits of radicals, poets, feminists and naked art critics, (2023)Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/15/alice-neel-review-sexy-wonky-portraits-of-radicals-poets-feminists-and-naked-art-critics Accessed: 22/02/2023)
Hoban, P. (2021) Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, Paperback edition. New York: David Zwirner Books
Nochlin, L (2020) Reilly, Maura, Women Artists : The Linda Nochlin Reader 2020, Thames & Hudson
Phillips, J. (2022) The Baby on The Fire Escape Creativity, Motherhood and the Mind-Baby Problem. First Edition. United States of America: W.W Norton
Robert H (2007). “The Art Spirit”, p.285, Basic Books
The Barbican, Press Room, Alice Neel: Hot Off The Griddle, (2023) Available at: https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/alice-neel-hot-off-the-griddle
(Accessed 20/02/23)
The Met, Black Draftee (James Hunter), Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656757 (Accessed 25/02/2023)