Word: neel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Portraitist Alice Neel has said that "Art is not as stupid as human conversation," and, in the case of her paintings, she is right. The paintings now on display at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass. give visitors a more direct line of communication to Neel than speech can provide. The show is a sort of limited retrospective of the painter's work and a centennial celebration of her birth on Jan. 28, 1900. The Addison is the third host to the exhibit, put together by the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Ann Temkin...
...show assembles pieces from all points in Neel's career, featuring prominently her better-known later portraits. But it is the inclusion of lesser-known works, several of which have never before been publicly displayed, which makes the exhibit a treat and an invigorating experience. Too frequently, exhibitions provide an incomplete or edited vision of an artist's work. Those shows that do give a more inclusive view of a career often fail to demonstrate the evolution of the artist. Perhaps the greatest success of the Neel show is that it navigates a smoothly constructed and insightful walk through...
...Neel's paintings is to see her life. Arguably, this can be said of any artist, but in Neel's case, it is doubly true. Neel's commitment to representing the figure, even when abstraction was the trend, led her to paint the people around her. Family, friends, lovers, artists and writers all appear and reappear with near-brutal honesty, often stripped literally and figuratively, down to their bare skin and most essential character. It is this ability of Neel's to completely reveal her subjects which makes her work stunning. Appropriately, her "Self-Portrait" (1980) awaits visitors...
...Neel, who died in 1984, led a passionate and sometimes turbulent life. Perhaps too often, biographical descriptions of Neel focus on the hardships she experienced-the death of her first child, separation from her husband Carlos Enrquez, who took their second daughter with him, a mental breakdown, a string of sometimes difficult lovers. Certainly the artist did deal with many losses-but over the course of Neel's life, her artistic expression seems to have gained a greater emphasis on the passionate than the turbulent...
...exhibit of ALICE NEEL's vibrant portraits organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art opens today at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Call (978) 749-4027 for more information...