Artist & Critic with Don Gray, "Alice Neel, Artist"

See more at: www.JessieEvans-DonGrayArt.com
Artist & Critic with Don Gray was a television show that aired in New York on Manhattan Public Access during the 1970's and 80's.

These videos are brought to you by the Don Gray and Jessie Benton Evans Gray Art Trust.
All rights reserved.

-------------------------------------------------

Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psychological acumen, and emotional intensity. Neel was called "one of the greatest portrait artists of the 20th century" by Barry Walker, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which organized a retrospective of her work in 2010.

Toward the end of the 1960s, interest in Neel's work intensified. The momentum of the women's movement led to increased attention, and Neel became an icon for feminists. In 1970, she was commissioned to paint the feminist activist Kate Millett for the cover of Time magazine. Millett refused to sit for Neel; consequently, the magazine cover was based on a photograph.

By the mid-1970s, Neel had gained celebrity and stature as an important American artist. The American Academy and the Institute of Arts and Letters elected Neel in 1976. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter presented her with a National Women's Caucus for Art award for outstanding achievement. Neel's reputation was at its height at the time of her death in 1984.

Neel's life and works are featured in the documentary Alice Neel, which premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and was directed by her grandson, Andrew Neel. The film was given a New York theatrical release in April of that year.

In 1943, Neel's female nude portrait of Ethel Ashton was exhibited at Alumni Exhibition for the very first time, 13 years after the painting was created, and received brutal criticisms from art critics and the general public. In 1974, Neel's work was given a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and posthumously, in the summer of 2000, also at the Whitney. In 1980 she was invited to take part in an exhibition of self-portraits at the Harold Reed Gallery in New York, where her self-portrait was showcased for the first time.

The first exhibition dedicated to Neel's works in Europe was held in London in 2004 at the Victoria Miro Gallery. Jeremy Lewison, who had worked at the Tate, was the curator of the collection. In 2001 the Philadelphia Museum of Art organized a retrospective of her art entitled Alice Neel. She was the subject of a retrospective entitled Alice Neel: Painted Truths organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Texas, which was on view from March 21 to June 15, 2010. The exhibition traveled to Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö, Sweden. In 2013, the first major presentation of the artist's watercolors and drawings was on view at Nordiska Akvarellmuseet in Skärhamn, Sweden. Moore College of Art hosted a solo exhibition of alumna Neel's work in 1971.

In 2017, Hilton Als curated the exhibition Alice Neel, Uptown, at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London, (May 18–July 29, 2017). The Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany presented the exhibition Alice Neel - Painter of Modern Life from October 10, 2017 to January 14, 2018.

Видео Artist & Critic with Don Gray, "Alice Neel, Artist" канала Don Gray and Jessie Benton Evans Gray Art