Alice NeelPainter of Modern Life

The American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) is acknowledged as one of the most important figurative painters in the history of American art in the twentieth century. Operating during a period of revolutionary abstraction, she took her own radical position by adopting a particular, idiosyncratic formal language, but always keeping an aim towards establishing “the truth” in her psychologically penetrating paintings. Neel portrays the anxieties and frailties of the human race in a period of unprecedented political, social and technological change.
The exhibition catalogue presents around seventy paintings. The authors review Alice Neel’s artistic development over approximately sixty years, and set out the history of her oeuvre's reception, her relationship to twentieth century photography, her position in relation to second-wave feminism and her personal interest in early twentieth century European art. This survey conveys Neel's fresh impression of America at a time of cultural and artistic transition.
Exhibitions: Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki 10.6.–2.10.2016 | Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 5.11.2016–12.2.2017 | Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles 4.3.–17.9.2017 | Deichtorhallen Hamburg 13.10.2017–14.1.2018