This autumn and winter, Moderna Museet Malmö is featuring its largest exhibition so far, in terms of floor space. The entire Turbine Hall and the new gallery will be used for the exhibition Alice Neel: Painted Truths, summarising 70 years of work by the American artist.
Curators: Jeremy Lewison and Magnus Jensner
The exhibition, which is divided into nine themes, presents some 60 works by Alice Neel. She painted portraits at a time when abstract expressionism was the prevailing idiom and portrait-painting was the domain of male realist artists. With the advent of postmodernism and feminism, Alice Neel gained a more prominent position and is now an iconic figure in American painting.
Alice Neel is best known for her psychologically incisive portraits, or “pictures of people”, as she called them. Her paintings give us an idea of American social and economic diversity in the mid-1900s. In addition to famous contemporary artists and writers, Alice Neel painted her friends, family, acquaintances and neighbours in Spanish Harlem, scrutinising their personal features with unusual honesty to document the changeable face of the 20th century. Alice Neel: Painted Truths demonstrates the enormous span of Neel’s oeuvre by bringing together works from a career spanning nearly 70 years.
A richly illustrated book will be published in conjunction with the exhibition, containing essays by Jeremy Lewison, Barry Walker, Tamar Garb and Robert Storr, tributes by the artists Frank Auerbach, Marlene Dumas and Chris Ofili, and a chronology, revealing the unique artistic vision of Alice Neel.
Alice Neel: Painted Truths has been organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Generous funding has been provided by The National Endowment for the Arts.
The exhibition at Moderna Museet Malmö is supported by
Saturday 9 October 3 pm
Guided tour of Alice Neel: PaintedTruths
Jeremy Lewison, curator of the Alice Neel exhibition, hosts a guided tour together with the director of Moderna Museet Malmö, Magnus Jensner. In English. The guided tour is included in the admission fee.
Sunday 21 November 2 pm
Talk about Alice Neel: Painted Truths
Jeremy Lewison, curator of the Alice Neel exhibition, talks about about her artistry. In English. The guided tour is included in the admission fee.
10 October , 21 November, 2 January 4 pm
Film screening: Alice Neel
This autumn, Moderna Museet Malmö and cinema Biograf Spegeln are screening a documentary about the life of Alice Neel. The film, made by her grandson Andrew Neel, is a personal reflection on a highly interesting artistic career, which challenged many contemporary conventions. Please note that the film will be shown at Biograf Spegeln, at Stortorget in Malmö.