Alice Neel

Alice Neel was born on January 28, 1900, in Pennsylvania. During her youth, her family did not support her desire to become an artist. Despite this, Alice Neel enrolled at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women in 1921. Blessed with an unwavering original, the artist witnessed a parade of avant-garde movements from Abstract Expressionism to Conceptual art , and refused to follow any of them. Instead, she developed a unique and expressive style of portrait painting that captured the psychology of people living in New York City , from friends and neighbors in Spanish Harlem to celebrities. Part of what makes Neel one of the greatest American portrait artists of the 20th century is her rejection of traditional categories (gender, age, race, social status, etc.).

Having lost a child to diphtheria, Alice Neel decided to paint on subjects such as motherhood, loss, and anxiety. Alice Neel's vision of the human condition has never wavered, observing each subject with a fresh eye, remaining direct, unflinching, and always empathetic. Her portraits of people and places are among the most insightful images in 20th-century American art. Alice Neel's work is featured in numerous collections such as the Met, the Withney Museum of American Art in New York , the National Gallery in Washington, and Tate Modern in London. She also exhibited in 2022 at the Centre Pompidou and in 2023 at the Barbican Center in London.