Alice NeeL: People come first
At The Met: March 22 – August 1, 2021.
A rare retrospective of the work of the American realist painter Alice Neel. Even virtually, her images can be appreciated as powerful reminders of our shared humanity and strived for dignity; irrespective of where we may be on our eternal search for self and place; sought by the privileged or the deprived, in home, studio or on the street. Terrific pictures in my opinion, and I love that she insists upon “pictures”; snapshots from real life, not for her the formalities of portraiture! The exhibition primer explores the sources of Neel’s inspiration; to be seen written in the faces and on the streets of Harlem.
In an excellent piece at The New York Times, Roberta Smith lauds Neel into the pantheon of modern painting; contextualising her radicalness in terms of the social and political turmoil of the twentieth century, and the complex interaction between those powerful exterior forces and the equally palpable interiors of the subjects, and in the virtuosity in which Neel, with colour and texture, bring all these facets together in her composition.
One reads, also, of the brilliant Met installation; the curators playing with chronology, thematics and historical; Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey have their say in the following excellent little video which was a virtual opening of sorts. I don’t know the pandemic status in respect to museums in New York at the moment, but it is to be hoped that, through this show, Neel’s work will find renewed attention and viewership into the Summer months.