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Met splash
Current Show
People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
exterior show
Met intro
Exhibition Overview
Alice Neel: People Come First is the first museum retrospective in New York of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in twenty years. This ambitious survey positions Neel as one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art, as demonstrated in the approximately one hundred paintings, drawings, and watercolors that appear in The Met’s survey. Accompanied by a catalogue. Visit the Met website
NYTimes Quote large
It’s time to put Alice Neel in her rightful place in the pantheon
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
interior show 1
NewYorker Quote small
There’s a profound spiritual component to the work; her intense and casual surfaces feel like a wall that she wants her subjects’ souls to walk through to meet ours. At times, her focus, her desire to understand who her subjects are and, by extension, who you might be, can have you rushing out of the galleries for a breath of air.
Hilton Als
The New Yorker, April 19, 2021
The New Yorker, April 19, 2021
interior show 1
TheVulture Quote small
Experiencing Neel’s work at the Met — after a full year of loss and social upheaval — her gigantic vision, perseverance, and the tragedies of her life tell us that we could be heroes like her and the people she painted. It’s easy to recognize her greatness in retrospect, when her work is celebrated in a setting like this. For most of Neel’s 84 years, though, she was artistically on her own. “I broke all the rules,” she said.
Jerry Saltz
The Vulture, April 6, 2021
The Vulture, April 6, 2021
interior show 1
NYTimesquote small
A large retrospective feels at home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s grandest galleries and should silence any doubt about the artist’s originality or her importance... The latest evidence is the gloriously relentless retrospective of Alice Neel (1900-1984), the radical realist painter of all things human, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
interior show 1
Audio
Press to hear Alice Neel speak about her life and work
interior show 1
WashingtonPost Quote small
Days after seeing “People Come First’’, a career-spanning Alice Neel survey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an afterimage of her brisk vision of vibrant humanity still pulses behind my eyes. Even in memory, Neel's paintings never sit still. They squirm, shiver and jiggle. Particularly memorable is her astonishing sequence of tender yet frank, unidealized portraits of pregnant women, women in childbirth and women breastfeeding. Regarded cumulatively, they are one of the signal achievements of modern American art.
Sebastian Smee
The Washington Post, March 25, 2021
The Washington Post, March 25, 2021
interior show 1
Blank
Met splash
Current Show
People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
exterior show
Met intro
Exhibition Overview
Alice Neel: People Come First is the first museum retrospective in New York of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in twenty years. This ambitious exhibition positions Neel as one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art, as demonstrated through the approximately one hundred paintings, drawings, and watercolors that appear in The Met’s survey. Accompanied by a catalogue. Visit the Met website
interior show 1
NYTimes Quote large
It’s time to put Alice Neel in her rightful place in the pantheon
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
interior show 1
NewYorker Quote small
There’s a profound spiritual component to the work; her intense and casual surfaces feel like a wall that she wants her subjects’ souls to walk through to meet ours. At times, her focus, her desire to understand who her subjects are and, by extension, who you might be, can have you rushing out of the galleries for a breath of air.
Hilton Als
The New Yorker, April 19, 2021
The New Yorker, April 19, 2021
interior show 1
TheVulture Quote small
Experiencing Neel’s work at the Met — after a full year of loss and social upheaval — her gigantic vision, perseverance, and the tragedies of her life tell us that we could be heroes like her and the people she painted. It’s easy to recognize her greatness in retrospect, when her work is celebrated in a setting like this. For most of Neel’s 84 years, though, she was artistically on her own. “I broke all the rules,” she said.
Jerry Saltz
The Vulture, April 6, 2021
The Vulture, April 6, 2021
interior show 1
NYTimesquote small
A large retrospective feels at home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s grandest galleries and should silence any doubt about the artist’s originality or her importance... The latest evidence is the gloriously relentless retrospective of Alice Neel (1900-1984), the radical realist painter of all things human, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
interior show 1
WashingtonPost Quote small
Days after seeing “People Come First’’, a career-spanning Alice Neel survey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an afterimage of her brisk vision of vibrant humanity still pulses behind my eyes. Even in memory, Neel's paintings never sit still. They squirm, shiver and jiggle. Particularly memorable is her astonishing sequence of tender yet frank, unidealized portraits of pregnant women, women in childbirth and women breastfeeding. Regarded cumulatively, they are one of the signal achievements of modern American art.
Sebastian Smee
The Washington Post, March 25, 2021
The Washington Post, March 25, 2021
interior show 1
Audio
Press to hear Alice Neel speak about her life and work
Blank
Met splash
Current Show
People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
exterior show
Met intro
Exhibition Overview
This is the first museum retrospective in New York of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in twenty years. This ambitious survey positions Neel as one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art. Visit the Met website
interior show 1
NYTimes Quote large
It’s time to put Alice Neel in her rightful place in the pantheon
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
interior show 1
NewYorker Quote small
There’s a profound spiritual component to the work; her intense and casual surfaces feel like a wall that she wants her subjects’ souls to walk through to meet ours. At times, her focus, her desire to understand who her subjects are and, by extension, who you might be, can have you rushing out of the galleries for a breath of air.
Hilton Als
The New Yorker, April 19, 2021
The New Yorker, April 19, 2021
interior show 1
TheVulture Quote small
Experiencing Neel’s work at the Met — after a full year of loss and social upheaval — her gigantic vision, perseverance, and the tragedies of her life tell us that we could be heroes like her and the people she painted. It’s easy to recognize her greatness in retrospect, when her work is celebrated in a setting like this. For most of Neel’s 84 years, though, she was artistically on her own.
Jerry Saltz
The Vulture, April 6, 2021
The Vulture, April 6, 2021
interior show 1
NYTimesquote small
A large retrospective feels at home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s grandest galleries and should silence any doubt about the artist’s originality or her importance... The latest evidence is the gloriously relentless retrospective of Alice Neel (1900-1984), the radical realist painter of all things human....
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
interior show 1
WashingtonPost Quote small
Days after seeing “People Come First’’, a career-spanning Alice Neel survey at the Met in New York, an afterimage of her brisk vision of vibrant humanity still pulses behind my eyes. Even in memory, Neel's paintings never sit still. They squirm, shiver and jiggle... they are one of the signal achievements of modern American art.
Sebastian Smee
The Washington Post, March 25, 2021
The Washington Post, March 25, 2021
interior show 1
Audio
Press to hear Alice Neel speak about her life and work
Animated squares
Press intro
Alice Neel at the Met has received glowing praise in the press. Here’s a selection of reviews
New York Times Review
The New York Times
April 1, 2021
‘It’s Time to Put Alice Neel in Her Rightful Place in the Pantheon.’ By Roberta Smith
Read here
‘It’s Time to Put Alice Neel in Her Rightful Place in the Pantheon.’ By Roberta Smith
Read here
Washington Post Review
The Washington Post
March 25, 2021
‘Alice Neel was the greatest American portraitist of the 20th century. Her work continues to astonish.’ By Sebastian Smee
Read here
‘Alice Neel was the greatest American portraitist of the 20th century. Her work continues to astonish.’ By Sebastian Smee
Read here
The New Yorker Review
Vulture Review
The Vulture
April 6, 2021
‘The Detonations of Alice Neel: The artist’s portrait show at the Met is packed with raw emotional power.’ By Jerry Saltz
Read here
‘The Detonations of Alice Neel: The artist’s portrait show at the Met is packed with raw emotional power.’ By Jerry Saltz
Read here
Artnet Review
Artnet
April 2, 2021
‘Painter Alice Neel’s Career Survey at the Met Suggests What Empathy Can Look Like in an Age of Difference.’
Read here
‘Painter Alice Neel’s Career Survey at the Met Suggests What Empathy Can Look Like in an Age of Difference.’
Read here
Smithsonian Review
Smithsonian Magazine
Press intro
Alice Neel at the Met has received glowing praise in the press. Here’s a selection of reviews
New York Times Review
The New York Times
April 1, 2021
‘It’s Time to Put Alice Neel in Her Rightful Place in the Pantheon.’
By Roberta Smith
Read here
‘It’s Time to Put Alice Neel in Her Rightful Place in the Pantheon.’
By Roberta Smith
Read here
Washington Post Review
The Washington Post
March 25, 2021
‘Alice Neel was the greatest American portraitist of the 20th century. Her work continues to astonish.’ By Sebastian Smee
Read here
‘Alice Neel was the greatest American portraitist of the 20th century. Her work continues to astonish.’ By Sebastian Smee
Read here
New Yorker Review
Vulture Review
The Vulture
April 6, 2021
‘The Detonations of Alice Neel: The artist’s portrait show at the Met is packed with raw emotional power.’
By Jerry Saltz
Read here
‘The Detonations of Alice Neel: The artist’s portrait show at the Met is packed with raw emotional power.’
By Jerry Saltz
Read here
Artnet Review
Artnet
April 2, 2021
‘Painter Alice Neel’s Career Survey at the Met Suggests What Empathy Can Look Like in an Age of Difference.’
Read here
‘Painter Alice Neel’s Career Survey at the Met Suggests What Empathy Can Look Like in an Age of Difference.’
Read here
Smithsonian Review
Smithsonian Magazine
Animated squares
About intro
About Alice Neel
Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century
Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century
Intro
Artist, Humanist, Individualist
Alice Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century and a pioneer among women artists. A painter of people, landscape and still life, Neel was never fashionable or in step with avant-garde movements. Sympathetic to the expressionists of Europe and Scandinavia and to the darker arts of Spanish painting, Alice Neel's style and approach was distinctively her own.
Early life
Early Life
Neel was born near Philadelphia in 1900 and trained at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. She became a painter with a strong social conscience and equally strong left-wing beliefs. In the 1930s she lived in Greenwich Village, New York and enrolled as a member of the Works Progress Administration for which she painted urban scenes. Her 1930s portraits embraced left wing writers, artists and trade unionists.
Artisitc Development
Artistic Development
Neel left Greenwich Village for Spanish Harlem in 1938 to get away from the rarefied atmosphere of an art colony. In the 1960s she moved to the Upper West Side and made a determined effort to reintegrate with the art world. This led to a series of dynamic portraits of artists, curators and gallery owners, among them Frank O’Hara, Andy Warhol and the young Robert Smithson.
Recognition
Recognition
In the 1970s, as her fame increased, she never lost touch with what most mattered to her, the people of New York who happened to intersect with her life, be it art world figures, neighbors, or strangers. Neel was never restrained by convention, she broke barriers throughout her life, celebrating the freedom of women to express their independence and take pride in their bodies.
More
Justice
Champion of Social Justice
Neel’s entire life and work was infused with an interest in all humanity. She had a sensitivity for those who suffered from and those who fought against social discrimination. Neel was always ahead of society’s acceptance: whether the plight of labourers, the poor, women’s freedom from stereotypes, their equality of eroticism and intelligence, gender discrimination including gay rights, and racism against blacks and immigrants.
More
Later life
Later Life
Alice Neel exhibited widely in America throughout the 1970s and in 1974 she was honored with a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In the year 2000, she was again honored with a retrospective on the occasion of her centennial. She was widely recognized as one of America’s great artists, but she was still rarely noticed in Europe.
New Millennium
Retrospective
In 2010, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston organized a retrospective with Barry Walker and Jeremy Lewison that traveled to two venues in Europe: the Whitechapel in London and the Moderna Museet Malmö in Malmö, Sweden. This initial introduction was well received. In 2016 another retrospective that traveled through Europe resulted finally in her recognition as a world renowned artist of the 20th century.
About intro
About Neel
Alice Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century who painted in a style and with an approach that was distinctively her own.
Alice Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century who painted in a style and with an approach that was distinctively her own.
Intro
Artist, Humanist, Individualist
Alice Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century and a pioneer among women artists. A painter of people, landscape and still life, Neel was never fashionable or in step with avant-garde movements. Sympathetic to the expressionists of Europe and Scandinavia and to the darker arts of Spanish painting, Neel's style and approach was distinctively her own.
Early life
Early Life
Born near Philadelphia in 1900, Neel trained at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. She became a painter with a strong social conscience and equally strong left-wing beliefs. In the 1930s she lived in Greenwich Village and enrolled as a member of the Works Progress Administration, painting urban scenes. Her 1930s portraits embraced left wing writers, artists and trade unionists.
Artisitc Development
Artistic Development
Neel left Greenwich Village for Spanish Harlem in 1938 to get away from the rarefied atmosphere of an art colony. In the 1960s she moved to the Upper West Side and made a determined effort to reintegrate with the art world. This led to a series of dynamic portraits of artists, curators and gallery owners, among them Frank O’Hara, Andy Warhol and the young Robert Smithson.
Recognition
Recognition
In the 1970s, as her fame increased, she never lost touch with what most mattered to her, the people of New York who happened to intersect with her life, be it art world figures, neighbors, or strangers. Never restrained by convention, she broke barriers her whole life, celebrating the freedom of women to express their independence and take pride in their bodies.
More
Justice
Champion of Social Justice
Neel’s entire life and work was infused with an interest in all humanity. She had a sensitivity for those who suffered from and those who fought against social discrimination. Neel was always ahead of society’s acceptance: whether the plight of lthe poor, women’s freedom from stereotypes, their equality of eroticism and intelligence, gay rights, gender discrimination, and all forms of racism.
More
Later life
Later Life
Neel exhibited widely in America throughout the 1970s and in 1974 she was honored with a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In the year 2000, she was again honored with a retrospective on the occasion of her centennial. She was widely recognized as one of America’s great artists, but she was rarely noticed in Europe.
New Millennium
Retrospective
In 2010, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston organized a retrospective with Barry Walker and Jeremy Lewison that traveled to two venues in Europe: the Whitechapel in London and the Moderna Museet Malmö in Sweden. This introduction was well received. In 2016 another retrospective that traveled through Europe resulted finally in her recognition as a world renowned artist of the 20th century.
Animated squares
Guggenheim
Next Shows
People Come First
Guggenheim
Bilbao, Spain
September 17, 2021 –
February 6, 2022
People Come First
Guggenheim
Bilbao, Spain
September 17, 2021 –
February 6, 2022
Next Show
Neel at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain
This will be the first retrospective in Spain of American artist Alice Neel. This ambitious exhibition will position Neel as one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art, as demonstrated in approximately one hundred paintings, drawings, and watercolors that will appear. Visit the Guggenheim website
Elenka
Zrimer
Alice Neel:
The Early Years
David Zwirner
New York
September 9 –
October 16, 2021
The Early Years
David Zwirner
New York
September 9 –
October 16, 2021
Guggenheim
Next Shows
People Come First
Guggenheim
Bilbao, Spain
September 17, 2021 –
February 6, 2022
People Come First
Guggenheim
Bilbao, Spain
September 17, 2021 –
February 6, 2022
Next Show
Neel at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain
This will be the first retrospective in Spain of American artist Alice Neel. This ambitious exhibition will position Neel as one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art, as explored in the approximately one hundred paintings, drawings, and watercolors that will appear. Visit the Guggenheim website
Elenka
Zwirmer
Alice Neel:
The Early Years
David Zwirner
New York
September 9 –
October 16, 2021
The Early Years
David Zwirner
New York
September 9 –
October 16, 2021
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