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David Zwirner
The Spectator feature
Why Alice Neel remains a vital presence
The artist’s path to success was long and arduous, paved with heartbreak and poverty
Saffron Swire
The Spectator
November 2024
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At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World
David Zwirner
Los Angeles
September 7 -
November 2, 2024
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At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World
The show was curated by Hilton Als and continues the gallery’s history of presenting curated exhibitions that focus on different facets of Neel’s ever-relevant work. This exhibition is accompanied by an expansive catalogue, published by David Zwirner Books.
Visit the David Zwirner website
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David Zwirner, LA

Munch Oslo
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Every Person is a New Universe
Munch Museum, Oslo
September 2 -
November 26, 2023
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Alice Neel: Every Person is a New Universe
Fall 2023 visitors became better acquainted with the radical artist Alice Neel in the most comprehensive presentation of her art ever shown in Norway. Organised in collaboration with the Centre Pompido, Paris and the Barbican Centre, London. Photos copyright Munchmuseet.
Visit the Munch Museum website
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Munch, Oslo

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Barbican
Alice Neel: Hot Off
The Griddle
Barbican, London
February 16, 2023 –
May 21, 2023
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Neel at Barbican Centre, London
The largest exhibition to date in the UK of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) whose vivid portraits capture the shifting social and political context of the American twentieth century.
Visit their website
The Independent feature
How New York artist Alice Neel seduced us with her fearless, fleshy portraits
Eloise Hendy, The Independent
February 17, 2023
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The Independent
Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle review – easy on the eye portraits from an artist with guts
Mark Hudson, The Independent
February 15, 2023
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Guardian Searle
Alice Neel review – sexy, wonky portraits of radicals, poets, feminists and naked art critics
Adrian Searle, The Guardian
February 15, 2023
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The I
Hot Off the Griddle, Barbican: Nudity, suffering and joy from a radical collector of souls
Florence Hallett, The I
February 16, 2023
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Evening Standard
Hot off the Griddle at the Barbican review: this humane painter speaks so clearly to us still
Ben Luke, Evening Standard
February 15, 2023
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The Times
Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle review – life unvarnished
Chloë Ashby, The Times
February 15, 2023
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Guardian
‘She created a space where people could reveal themselves’: the unique portraits of Alice Neel
Skye Sherwin, The Guardian
February 6, 2023
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FT
Alice Neel was a painter of people – and clothes ... her portraits have a sharp eye for fashion
Annachiara Biondi, The Financial Times
February 4, 2023
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Observer
Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle; Action, Gesture, Paint – review
Laura Cumming, The Observer
February 19, 2023
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Guardian 2
‘She really wanted to see my labia piercing’: what was it like to be painted by Alice Neel?
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
February 21, 2023
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FT 2
Alice Neel, Barbican review – sharp portraits get under the skin
Rachel Spence, The Financial Times
February 23, 2023
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Fad Magazine
Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle Review
Bryson Edward Howe, FAD Magazine
February 23, 2023
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Barbican

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Pompidou
Un regard engagé
An Engaged Eye
Centre Pompidou
Paris, France
October 5, 2022 –
January 16, 2023
Pompidou details
Neel at Centre Pompidou Paris
An icon of militant feminism and a precursor of an intersectional approach, Neel often painted women – nudes who were a far cry from the traditional paradigm shaped by the male view and devoid of any sentimentality. The exhibition was divided into two parts structured freely around the notions of class and gender struggle. In total, some 75 paintings and drawings were on display. Visit their website.
Le Monde
At the Centre Pompidou, realist painter Alice Neel emerges from obscurity
Philippe Dagen, Le Monde
October 22, 2022
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Art Newspaper
While her New York peers were fighting over the future of abstraction, Alice Neel was urgently capturing life
Matthew Holman, The Art Newspaper
October 28, 2022
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Les Echoes
Discovering the American painter Alice Neel
A la découverte de la peintre américaine Alice Neel
Judith Benhamoud, Les Echoes, November 4, 2022
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Beaux Arts
The Human Comedy
of Alice Neel
La comédie humaine
d’Alice Neel
Daphné Bétard, BeuxArts
October 18, 2022
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Pompidou

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People Come First
de Young Museum
San Francisco
March 12, 2022 –
July 10, 2022
Elenka
de Young details
Neel at de Young Museum San Francisco
Alice Neel was one of the twentieth century’s most radical painters. This was the first comprehensive West Coast retrospective of Neel’s work. The award-winning exhibition included paintings, drawings, and watercolors, along with additional artworks and media exclusive to the San Francisco show. Installation view photograph by Gary Sexton, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Visit their website.
ABC7
Click here to watch an interview with Lauren Palmore, Assistant Curator of American art at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. She describes Neel as "Decades ahead of her time in her sympathy for her neighbors in Spanish Harlem, for LGBTQ+ couples, for creatives of all walks of life. She saw everyone's innate humanity. That's what really set her apart..."
ABC7 News
March 13, 2022
Elenka
Blackbook
This past July 12, a New York Times headline blared what practically sounded like the launch of a full-blown campaign: It’s Time to Put Alice Neel in Her Rightful Place in the Pantheon. They were right; and it should be stated that said pantheon does not just include the top female artists of her generation, but arguably all of the most prominent American artists of the 20th Century.
Nena Hawke
Blackbook
March 15, 2022
business man
San Fran examiner
How could an artist of such relaxed countenance plunge the depths of human existence with such detail and empathy ... without taking on some of those very depths? That’s one of the many questions that art-goers will have as they traverse an exhibit that reveals an artist who was both of her time and ahead of her time in the way she spotlighted people and scenes the art world had previously ignored. Read more
Jonathan Curiel
The San Francisco Examiner
March 10, 2022
KQED
That thrilling combination of representation and abstraction is so contemporary, it’s possible to now take the radicalness of Neel’s work for granted. But one need only to look at Childbirth (1939), thought to be one of the first Western paintings to represent a woman giving birth, to understand how Neel’s desire to depict all aspects of life made her work so remarkable. Read more
Sarah Hotchkiss
KQED
March 11, 2022
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de Young

Bilbao

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People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
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It’s time to put Alice Neel in her rightful place in the pantheon
Roberta Smith
The New York Times, April 1, 2021
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In March, the Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrated Neel’s art... This month, David Zwirner gallery will present a collection of the artist’s early works, including streetscapes and portraits, at its West 20th Street space in New York City. Continued and growing interest in Neel’s paintings could be viewed as inevitable — her focus on those who lived on society’s margins speaks directly to our cultural moment.
Rennie McDougall
New York Times, September 10, 2021
Audio
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Apollo Winner
Apollo Magazine: Exhibition of the Year
Alice Neel: People Come First
The Met, New York 2021

In around 100 paintings, drawings and watercolours the largest retrospective of Neel’s work in New York – and the first in 20 years – argued for her as one of the great American painters of the 20th century. The artist’s urgent, sympathetic portraits of her fellow New Yorkers felt particularly welcome in 2021, and this show awarded them with the status they have long deserved.
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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
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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
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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
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WashingtonPost Quote small
Days after seeing “People Come First’’ ... 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
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People Come First
March 22, 2021 –
August 1, 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
exterior show
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
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Apollo Winner
Apollo Magazine
Exhibition of the Year
People Come First
The Met, New York 2021
The artist’s urgent, sympathetic portraits of her fellow New Yorkers felt particularly welcome in 2021, and this show awarded them with the status they have long deserved. Read more
Audio
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NewYorker Quote small
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
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TheVulture Quote small
Experiencing Neel’s work at the Met — 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.
Jerry Saltz
The Vulture
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
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WashingtonPost Quote small
Days after seeing “People Come First’’ 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
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The Met

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