Alice Neel : Painter of Modern Life

Alice Neel Painter of Modern Life

Book - 2016

This insightful catalogue examines anew the full range of Alice Neel's (1900-1984) celebrated paintings of people, still life, and cityscapes. Featuring around seventy paintings spanning the entire length of her career, this handsome book accompanies a major retrospective of her work, and reveals her underlying interest in the history of photography, German painting of the 1920s, and other artists, such as Van Gogh and Cezanne, all of which provided an important precedent for the veracity and raw emotional intensity of her figurative works. Neel is renowned for her visual acuity and psychological depth, and her portraits and nude paintings of friends, family, strangers, and prominent cultural figures alike convey an incredibly consiste...nt intimacy regardless of the relationship to her subject. The accompanying essays trace the trajectory of Neel's artistic language as it evolved alongside contemporaneous trends in the New York City art world and examines the manner in which her own work figured into the social and cultural contexts of her time.Created over a sixty year period, Neel's oeuvre offers a remarkably expressive document of the specific milieus she navigated through and ultimately transcends the marker of time altogether. Exhibition: Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland (06-10.2016) / Gemeente Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands (11.2016-02.2017) / Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles, France (03-09.2017) / Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (10.2017-01.2018).

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Subjects
Neel, Alice, > 1900-1984 > Exhibitions.
Neel, Alice, > 1900-1984.
Exhibition catalogs.
Genres
Exhibition catalogs
Published
Brussels : Mercatorfonds [2016]
Language
English
Dutch
Finnish
German
Other Authors
Jeremy Lewison (author), Bice Curiger, 1948- (-), Alice Neel, 1900-1984
Item Description
Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, June 10-October 2, 2016, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, November 5, 2016-February 12, 2017, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, March 4-September 17, 2017 and at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, October 13, 2017-January 14, 2018.
Physical Description
239 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), portraits ; 30 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-234) and index.
ISBN
9789462301382
9780300220070
ISSN
12384712
  • Alice Neel and the Human Image
  • Alice Neel: Painter of Modern Life, An Introduction / Jeremy Lewison
  • Painting Crisis / Jeremy Lewison
  • Emotional Values: Alice Neel and the American Reception of German Art / Petra Gördüren
  • Alice Neel, a Marxist Girl on Capitalism / Laura Stamps
  • "I hate the use of the word portrait." / Bice Curiger
  • A Modern Woman's Social Conscience
  • Catalogue of Works / Jeremy Lewison
  • Havana, Cuba
  • New York and Philadelphia
  • Greenwich Village
  • Spanish Harlem
  • The Upper West Side
  • Alice Neel Chronology
  • Exhibitions History
  • Notes
  • Concise Bibliography
  • Index.
Review by Choice Review

This is the exhibition catalogue accompanying a touring European retrospective exhibit (2016-18) of the work of renowned 20th-century portrait painter Alice Neel (1900-84). In addition to editing this handsome catalogue, Lewison (curator of the exhibit and advisor to the estate of Alice Neel) provides an introductory essay that places Neel's work in the context of the Charles Baudelaire essay (1863) from which the exhibition takes its name. The exhibition, and its catalogue, includes several little-known landscape and still-life paintings as well as Neel's now iconic portraits. These novel choices freshen the familiar subject, as do the essays. For example, Petra Gördüren's essay, "Emotional Values," considers Neel's work in relation to the reception of German art in the US; in her essay, "Alice Neel, a Marxist Girl on Capitalism," Laura Stamps delves into Neel's Marxist sympathies. A chronology of Neel's life and an exhibition history round out this fine addition to the art historical scholarship on Neel's work. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Kimberly Rhodes, Drew University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

This catalog accompanying a European traveling exhibition is written by art historians and edited by Lewison, the adviser to American painter Alice Neel's estate. Neel created portraiture at a time (1950s-1960s) when most artists focused on the style of abstraction. Neel's different themes are explored here, including the similarity of her technique to that of 1930s German expressionists and her portrayal of all classes and sorts of people, including various subcultures; the marginalized; ethnic communities; communists; homosexual; and -transgender people. Neel also produced nudes in both a de-eroticized and sexually liberated way, representing both male and female figures, thus dismantling the traditional "male gaze" dominant in the history of art. Also discussed is the influence of photography and the interplay and balance of realism, expressionism, and psychological tension in her paintings. VERDICT With many color illustrations and accessible text, this title is recommended for anyone interested in Neel or the social and political culture in America from the 1930s through the 1970s.-Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Univ. Lib., MA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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