52 Facts About Alice Neel

Alice Neel's paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psychological acumen, and emotional intensity.

Alice Neel pursued a career as a figurative painter during a period when abstraction was favored, and she did not begin to gain critical praise for her work until the 1960s.

Alice Neel was born on January 28,1900, in Merion Square, Pennsylvania.

Alice Neel's father was George Washington Neel, an accountant for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and her mother was Alice Concross Hartley Neel.

Young Alice Neel was the fourth of five children with three brothers and a sister.

Alice Neel's siblings were named Hartley, Albert, Lillian, and George Washington Jr.

Alice Neel was raised in a straight-laced, lower-middle-class family during a time when there were limited expectations and opportunities for women.

In 1925 Alice Neel received the Kern Doge Prize for Best Painting in her life class.

Alice Neel graduated from Philadelphia School of Design for Women in 1925.

In 1924, Alice Neel met Carlos Enriquez, an upper-class Cuban painter, at the Chester Springs summer school run by PAFA.

Alice Neel soon moved to Havana to live with Enriquez's family.

In Havana, Alice Neel was embraced by the burgeoning Cuban avant-garde, a set of young writers, artists and musicians.

Alice Neel later said she had her first solo exhibition in Havana, but there are no dates or locations to confirm this.

In March 1927, Alice Neel exhibited with her husband in the 12th Salon des Bellas Artes.

Alice Neel's daughter, Santillana, was born on December 26,1926, in Havana.

The trauma caused by Santillana's death infused the content of Alice Neel's paintings, setting a precedent for the themes of motherhood, loss, and anxiety that permeated her work for the duration of her career.

Shortly following Santillana's death, Alice Neel became pregnant with her second child.

Mourning the loss of her husband and daughter, Alice Neel had a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized, and attempted suicide.

Alice Neel was placed in the suicide ward of the Philadelphia General Hospital.

Alice Neel loved the wretch in the hero and the hero in the wretch.

Alice Neel had an affair with a man named Kenneth Doolittle who was a heroin addict and a sailor.

Alice Neel believed women in art represented a dreary way of life consisting of serving men.

Alice Neel often painted women in social interaction or in public spaces, starkly challenging the "Spheres of Femininity" that most 19th-century women artists existed and worked within.

In other words, it is believed that Alice Neel challenged the norms of women's role in the household and in everyday life from her paintings.

Alice Neel fundamentally changed the way the art establishment viewed the potentialities of the female nude by depicting an unprecedented range of the female experience.

Alice Neel depicted Ethel, her friend from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, as many art historians described as "nearly crippled with self conscious by her own exposure".

Alice Neel painted her friend through a distorted scale that added to the idea of "vulnerability and fearfulness".

However, Alice Neel's aim was not to paint the female body in an idealistic way, she wanted to paint in a truthful and honest manner.

Alice Neel's second son, Hartley, was born in 1941 to Alice Neel and her lover, the communist intellectual Sam Brody.

However, in 1943 the Works Progress Administration ceased working with Alice Neel, which made it harder for the artist to support her two sons.

In 1959, Alice Neel even made a film appearance after the director Robert Frank asked her to appear alongside a young Allen Ginsberg in his beatnik film, Pull My Daisy.

Alice Neel chose to paint the "basic facts of life" and strongly believed that this form of subject matter is worthy enough to be painted in the nudes, which was what distinguished her from other artists of her time.

In visually interpreting a person's habitus, Alice Neel understood that she could not be an objective observer, that her depictions would of necessity include her own response.

Alice Neel painted Kate Millett in 1970, using photographs of Millett to do so, because Millett had refused to pose for Alice Neel.

Alice Neel's career was given new life by the feminist art movement, and Kate Millett was a feminist icon of the time.

Alice Neel considered herself "a collector of souls" and she aimed to capture Millett's powerful aura.

Alice Neel painted this portrait at a time when many independent women, fighting for equal opportunities and being ignored, were looking for a mentor.

Alice Neel painted herself in her eightieth year of life, seated on a chair in her studio.

Alice Neel wore her glasses and held her paintbrush on right hand and an old cloth on the other hand.

Alice Neel painted herself in a truthful manner as she exposed her saggy breasts and belly for everyone to see.

Alice Neel's self-portrait was one of her last works before she died.

On October 13,1984, Alice Neel died with her family present in her New York City apartment, from advanced colon cancer.

The momentum of the women's movement led to increased attention, and Alice Neel became an icon for feminists.

Alice Neel's image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.

Alice Neel's recognition was at its height at the time of her death in 1984.

Neel's life and works are featured in the documentary Alice Neel, which premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and was directed by her grandson, Andrew Neel.

Alice Neel's career was used in a 3-episode series of the Freakonomics podcast "The Hidden Side of the Art Market", illustrating that "the art market is so opaque and illiquid that it barely functions like a market at all".

Alice Neel's work was included in the 2022 exhibition Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

In 1974, Alice Neel's work was given a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and posthumously, in the summer of 2000, at the Whitney.

In 2010, Jeremy Lewison and Barry Walker presented, for Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Alice Neel: Painted Truths, on view from March 21 to June 15,2010, which later went to the Whitechapel Gallery, London and Moderna Museet Malmo, Sweden.

In March 2021, a career-spanning retrospective of Alice Neel's work opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In September 2021, Alice Neel: People Come First, a retrospective of her work, opened at the Guggenheim Bilbao on September 17 and ran through February 6,2022.