Pictures of People: Alice Neel' American Portrait Gallery
by Pamela Allara
from Brandeis
A vibrant chronicle of the life and work of a prolific painter and bohemian eccentric.
Alice Neel
by Ann Tempkin
from Harry N. Abrams
Alice Neel (1900-1984) was one of this century's most powerfully original portraitists. Her psychological vision as a painter of people has been described as both tender and unforgiving. This full-scale examination of her life and work accompanies a traveling retrospective organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art that celebrates the centennial of her birth and is the first major exhibition of her work since 1974.
From deeply personal paintings of her own family and neighbors to arresting portraits of important New York art-world figures like Andy Warhol, Robert Smithson, and Frank O'Hara, the 75 paintings and watercolors presented in this book hover disconcertingly between intimacy and monumentality and have an unforgettable impact. This centennial salute will focus renewed attention on one of the preeminent American artists of the 20th century.
175 illustrations, 100 in full color, 8 1/2 x 12"
ANN TEMKIN is curator of 20th-century art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. SUSAN ROSENBERG is assistant curator of 20th-century art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
RICHARD FLOOD is chief curator at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE Whitney Museum of American Art, New YorkJune 29-Sept. 17, 2000 Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MassachusettsOct. 6-Dec. 31, 2000 Philadelphia Museum of ArtFeb. 18-Apr. 15, 2001 Walker Art Center, MinneapolisJune 9-Sept. 2, 2001
Uncommon Women: Gwendolyn Brooks, Sarah Caldwell, Julie Harris, Mary McCarthy, Alice Neel, Roberta Peters, Maria Tallchief, Mary Lou Williams, Eugenia Zukerman
Alice Neel's Women
by Carolyn Carr
from Rizzoli International Publications
Alice Neel: Black and White
by Alice Neel
from Robert Miller Gallery
Alice Neel's remarkable drawings are intimate explorations of her personal life: her loves and her family, her friends, people she met in New York and the art world. Spontaneous and dynamic, the works on paper in Black and White provide insight into her environments, exterior and interior. In them she positions universal themes--motherhood, death, longing--within the sphere of her private existence and her social unconscious. While a handful of the drawings are urban cityscapes and others are domestic settings, the majority are portraits. And when Neel, the self-named "Collector of Souls," composed a portrait, she never posed her sitters. Instead, she studied and spoke intimately with her subjects as they unconsciously assumed their most natural attitude, which she believed exhorted all their character and life experience. The images she created, full of distinctly innate gestures, stemmed from her succinct understanding and assembled memory, and coalesced into a unique impression of a person.
I did this at the expense of untold humiliations, but at least after my fashion I told the truth as I perceived it, and, considering the way one is bombarded by reality, did the best and most honest art of which I was capable. --Alice Neel
Essay by Amy Young.
Hardcover, 150 pages, 58 duotones.
Alice Neel: Drawings and Watercolors
Collecting Souls, Gathering Dust: The Struggles of Two American Artists, Alice Neel and Rhoda Medary
Duos: Alice Neel's double portraits
+++
