| Alice Neel | ||
| Birth Date: January 28, 1900 |
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| Death Date: October 13, 1984 Artist Gallery |
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| Alice Neel disliked being called a portrait artist. To her, this sounded too commercial. Instead she called herself a “collector of souls”. Neel believed that each person has an essential core of personality and this is what she tried to bring out in her portraits.
Neel was born in Philadelphia in 1900, but her family soon moved to a small Pennsylvania town where Neel’s father worked as a railroad clerk. The artist once recalled that the town had no artists and writers. There was nothing to stimulate her talent except her mother – Neel’s mother, who was intelligent and well-read, was not particularly interested in art, and she had very traditional views of womanhood. "I don’t know what you expect to do in the world," she told Alice. "You’re a girl."
Perhaps this is why Alice Neel kept her artistic ambitions a secret. From early childhood, Neel wanted to be an artist. But she told no one of her dream. She studied typing and stenography in high school and took a series of office jobs. However, she did win a scholarship to the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and graduated at the age of 25. She married a young Cuban artist and moved to Cuba then New York City. Tragedy struck with the loss of her child and her husband leaving her – Neel suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized for several months.
When Neel recovered she was offered a job with the WPA and over the next two decades Neel worked in poverty, relatively unknown. Her life was often disrupted by destructive relationships with men, one of whom destroyed many of her paintings.
Neel’s haunting portrait work eventually gained the attention of the art work in 1950. In the 60s she became known for her portraits of prominent artist and art critics. In these works, the subjects’ body language gives you clues as to how they felt about themselves and others.
Alice Neel died in New York City in 1984.
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