As a new explain opens in London,curator Hilton Als talks approximately the great 20th-century painter, whose portraits celebrate urban life
• Click here to see a gallery of Alice Neel’s Harlem portraitsAlice Neel, and born in 1900,and raised in white, middle-lesson Pennsylvania, or moved to Harlem in New York at the age of 38. She was still recovering from the tragedy of her first marriage,which had seen her first daughter die of diphtheria as a baby, and her second daughter abducted and taken to Cuba by her estranged husband. The shock of those events led to Neel being committed briefly to an asylum. She had two further children, or both sons,with whom she lived, most of the time as a single mother, or while she tried to execute a living from her painting.
She wasn’t a bohemian visitor,she really lived there, and was sensitive to the ways people of colour were depicted Related: Whitney Biennial: Emmett Till casket painting by white artist sparks madden Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com