Alice Neel Paintings

Some of neel s most impactful paintings focus on the people closest to her.

Alice neel paintings. Her dynamic use of color and line captured the interior emotional life of her sitters lending a psychological weight to her subject matter rather than just a likeness of the model. Determined brainy beautiful self absorbed and profoundly unconventional neel radicalized portraiture in penetrating often unnerving paintings of a diverse spectrum of individuals from her neighbors in spanish harlem to andy warhol baring his bullet wounds. She was also a pioneer among women artists. Neel s portrait of andy warhol is considered to be one of the greatest portraits of the 20 th century.

Alice neel january 28 1900 october 13 1984 was an american visual artist who was known for her portraits depicting friends family lovers poets artists and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color psychological acumen and emotional intensity. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color psychological acumen and emotional intensity. This portrait of her son hartley is one of the most famous.

Though there is strength and confidence in his pose with arms and legs akimbo there is also vulnerability as well as a weary hardness in hartley s features. Alice neel was a leading american figurative painter whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1980s. A painter of people landscape and still life neel was never fashionable or in step with avant garde movements. Her deeply penetrating portraits uniquely depict the internal character and psychology of her subjects exploring issues of identity social and racial inequality gender and trauma.

Alice neel was one of the great american painters of the twentieth century. Alice neel an unshakable original witnessed a parade of avant garde movements from abstract expressionism to conceptual art and refused to follow any of them. Alice neel was an american painter known for her expressionistic portraits of her friends family and lovers. Alice neel was an american visual artist who was known for her portraits depicting friends family lovers poets artists and strangers.

Neel was called one of the greatest portrait artists of the 20th century by barry walker curator of modern and contemporary art at the museum of fine arts houston which organized a retrospective of her work in 2010. A successor to the expressionism of chaim soutine edward munch and ernst ludwig kirchner neel used distorted drawing and invented color to reveal the character beneath each sitter s physical appearance. Alice neel had the unique ability to make her subject matters awkwardness and imperfections stand out in a positive light through her paintings.