Alice Neel: Freedom

With a practice spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, Alice Neel (1900¿1984) is widely regarded as one of the foremost American figurative painters of the twentieth century. Based in New York, Neel chose her subjects from her family, friends, and a broad variety of locals: writers, poets, artists, students, textile salesmen, psychologists, cabaret singers, and homeless bohemians. Her eccentric selection was thus also a portrayal of, and dialogue with, the city in which she lived. Through her penetrative, forthright, and at times humorous touch, her work subtly engaged with political and social issues, including gender, racial inequality, and labor struggles. Although she showed sporadically early in her career, from the 1960s onward Neel¿s work was exhibited widely in the United States and has since been the subject of numerous critically acclaimed posthumous presentations around the world.

Helen Molesworth is a curator and writer. She has organized a number of critically acclaimed exhibitions, most recently Kerry James Marshall: Mastry and Look Before You Leap: Black Mountain College 1933¿1957. Her forthcoming exhibition, One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art, opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in October 2018. She is the author of numerous catalogue essays and her writing has appeared in publications such as Artforum, Art Journal, Documents, and October. The recipient of the 2011 Bard Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Curatorial Excellence, she is currently at work on a book of essays about what art does.

Ginny Neel met Alice Neel in 1964 while at Wellesley College. In 1967, she worked with children in New York¿s inner city and got to know Alice personally. In 1969, after receiving an MA from Columbia University, she moved to San Francisco. There she met Alice¿s son Hartley. They married in 1970. Alice became a lifelong role model for her as a woman. After Alice¿s death, she joined the family as one of the directors of the Estate of Alice Neel. Since 2004, she and Hartley have worked closely with the galleries that represent Alice¿s work internationally.