Alice Neel

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.

Curators: Jeremy Lewison and Magnus Jensner