Throughout my education and while visiting various museums and shows I've had a chance to see many paintings by Alice Neel. Yet, up until now I haven't actually learned about her as an artist. To start, Alice Neel was an American Portrait Painter. But her life wasn't easy, she struggled and broke barriers as a female artist.
Born in 1900, Neel was taught that she wouldn't make an impact in the world because she was a woman. But she went on to pursue her art career and she took classes in art and eventually enrolled in Art School. While in school she met her husband Carlos Enriquez and she moved to Hanava with him learning more about Cuban avant-garde arts. When in this situation Alice Neel began to take her stance in political consciousness and equality for women.
 |
| Alice Neel in her studio in Harlem, 1944 |
A year later Alice and Carlos had a daughter, Santillana, who died a year later from diphtheria. The lose of her daughter was so strong that she portrayed themes of lose, motherhood, and anxiety in her paintings. Not long after the loss of Santillana, Neel had a second child, Isabella Lillian, in New York City. After her birth, Neel painted "Well Baby Clinic" which more resembles mothers and babies in an insane asylum than in a maternity ward. And a few year after that Carlos took Isabetta back to Cuba and in reaction to the lose of her husband and daughter, Neel broke down and was hospitalized and attempted suicide.
 |
| Alice Neel, Well Baby Clinic, 1928, oil on canvas, Private Collection |
At about this time it was the Depression Era, Alice was lucky to work for the Works Progress Administration and was hired to make paintings. During this time she was seeing heroin addict and sailor, Kenneth Doolittle who set fire to 350 of her watercolors, paintings and drawings a few years later.
 |
| Alice Neel, Kenneth Dolittle, 1931, oil on canvas, Tate Modern, London |
She then began to surround herself with artists, intellectuals, and political leaders for the Communist Party, who she also painted. This allowed her to become a well known and respected artist. She gave birth to another child, Richard, of her lover Jose Santiago moving to Spanish Harlem and painting her neighbors.
 |
| Alice Neel, The Spanish Family, 1943, oil on canvas, Private Collection |
After Jose left she gave birth to another son, Hartley, of her lover community intellectual, Sam Brody. As for her art career, she was illustrating for
Masses & Mainstream but her work for the Works Progress Administration stopped soon after leading to Alice Neel having to struggle to make ends meet. In the end of the 1960s, Neel's work gained interest because of the Women's Movement which led to Neel becoming an icon for many feminists. She became of celebrity status when she was awarded with a National Women's Caucus for Art award by President Jimmy Carter.
 |
| Alice Neel's painting of Kate Millett for the cover of TIME Magazine, August 31 1970 |
 |
| Alice Neel, Andy Warhol, 1970, oil on canvas, Whitney Museum, New York |
Alice Neel's Website has tons of information about her life and her work:
www.aliceneel.com
