Poster outside the gates of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in July 2021
Text/Figure Chen Rubin
Among painters who focus on portraits or figures, Alice Neil is not as warm as her predecessor, Mary Cassatt, nor the majestic beauty of John Singh Sargent. If the works of people such as Casart and Sargent are like the elegant "dramas" in movies, alice Neal's works, like "documentaries", portray the reality of life itself without scruples.
Born in January 1900 and died in October 1984, Alice Neal witnessed New York's transition from an obscure cultural depression in the early 20th century to an international art center metropolis, and she was also an active participant in New York art, although not part of Abstract Expressionism.
Pregnant Margaret Evans, 1978
From March 22 to August 1, 2021, Alice Neel, People Come First, alice Neel's large-scale retrospective, will be presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, followed by a global tour to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the San Francisco Museum of Art in the western United States, spanning one year and four months, which is the most significant highlight of Alice Neal's artistic career and will give Neil's work more insight.
Nun Self-Portrait, 1980
Capture this era with a paintbrush
For more than a decade, I have often had the opportunity to see Alice Neal's paintings and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in New York, and every time I see her work, I am very happy and even excited. Alice Neal lived in an era that included the peak of The Rise of Abstract Expressionist art in New York. But her works have nothing to do with the artistic trends of the time, she never seems to look up at the stars, but to be down-to-earth, and her works are full of human fireworks and strong atmosphere.
In addition to his childhood and education near Philadelphia, and as a result of marriage, Heil lived short-term in her husband's home country of Cuba for two years, and spent most of his life in New York City, from 1927 to 1984, nearly 60 years. From the early Bronx to Greenwich Village, to the later favorite Hispanic and African-American harlem districts.
Husband Carlos, 1926
When Neil was 24 years old, he met Carlos Enríquez, a painter from Cuba, and two years later the couple returned to New York, the United States, and after the death of their first daughter, Carlos left Neil, where Neil soon suffered the painful years of the Great Depression in the United States, and his life was almost in a state of collapse. Later, Neil raised several children born to her later boyfriend in distress. Because of Roosevelt's New Deal after the Great Depression, she had the opportunity to become a member of the Roosevelt New Deal Art Program, and finally had some income, but life was still difficult. Perhaps it was art that brought her out of the pain of losing her first daughter and being ruthlessly abused by her later boyfriend.
Son Harry, 1943
Alice Neil said: "The reason I paint is that life passes too quickly, and I want to use the format to make the moment of life stop." I happened to be born in 1900, and I wanted to capture the spirit of this era with a paintbrush."
Now it seems that her works can better embody the spirit of 20th-century New York than New York's hottest "abstract expressionism". Her work is filled with the pain and helplessness, melancholy and struggle of 20th-century New Yorkers. These works directly depict different moments in the midst of New York's high-rise buildings, ordinary people and even famous people.
Harlem! Harlem!
If you ask, what are some of the most powerful new works in New York in the last decade? There may be many answers, but one of the most popular geographical names that cannot be ignored is Harlem (also translated as Harlem).
Harlem, a community north of Manhattan, is home to Spanish-speaking and African-Americans from South America, and is now more commonly known as the most important African-American community, and is at the heart of African-American culture and art in New York. There was once a literary movement of the "Harlem Renaissance".
Daughter-in-law Kinna and son Richard, 1969, 1963
From Jacob Lawrence to Kerry James Marshall, their work is an important stage for the African-American settlement represented by Harlem. When the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York reopened in October 2019 after renovations, the fourth floor featured an "In and Around Harlem" exhibition hall, focusing on Lawrence's half-suite Migration series and Harlem's harlem characters by Neil and others. More than two years later, the Chinese art exhibition hall on the second floor has been replaced by works of art from other countries, except for Cao Fei's pearl river delta factory art "My Future Is Not a Dream", Paul Chan and Martin Wong's works, the number of works by Chinese artists in MoMA is pitiful, while the "Harlem" exhibition hall on the fourth floor is standing still, and Lawrence and Neil's Harlem-themed works are facing the audience every day.
In 1938, Alice Neil left Greenwich Village, where literary youth gathered, and moved to Harlem, where she wrote in her diary, "I love you, Harlem!" For more than 40 years thereafter, Neil lived here.
Boyfriend Jose, 1936
Neil moved into a suite on the third floor of 21 East 108th Street in 1938, next to Fifth Avenue and Central Park, and the one-bedroom rent for this building is $1,995 today, which is not expensive. Neil lived here for 24 years before moving to 300 West 107th Street, near the Hudson River, in 1962, at which point the space in Neil's home increased considerably. The monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the house today is $2,250, which is a bargain. Neil lives in the most modest home in New York, raising his own children while diligently documenting everything around him with a paintbrush.
When he first moved to the district, Neil said: "I have never felt strange in East Harlem because I find that I am surrounded by kind and hospitable humanity. ”
From the "Spanish-speaking Harlem" in the east to the African-American and ethnically mixed Harlem in the west. Neil's studio was at home, and her brush solidified Harlem's various figures on canvas.
Topless Andy Warhol, 1970
Who can make Andy Warhol take off her clothes and show her scars?
Entering the exhibition hall of Neil's retrospective "People First", the first work below the exhibition's big title is a full-body portrait of a naked pregnant woman, "Pregnant Margaret Evans" (1978), the deformed body of a pregnant woman, very eye-catching, and the pregnant woman's eyes, full of anticipation and tension.
This is the most typical style of Alice Neil's work: no scruples, directly to the reality of life.
"Andy Warhol" (1970) and "Self-Portrait" (1980) in this exhibition are naked and candid. Andy Warhol's ugly scar on his abdomen after he took off his clothes is a memorial from the opening surgery he performed after he was shot in 1968. Neil's 80-year-old self-portrait is even more nude, sitting on a small sofa to paint.
In 1970, Andy Warhol was already a popular artist in New York, and he was willing to let Neil show his weakness in a naked portrait, which also showed Neil's persistence and persistence in art.
James Fama, 1964
To be honest, works like Neil's, compared with the solemn or sweet portraits we see in art museums, do not reflect the characteristics of "beauty", and Neil seems to deliberately record the truth of life in a more personal way, but also the cruel truth.
Of the more than 100 works in the exhibition, the most are oil paintings, and there are also a small number of sketches and watercolor works, and the theme is very distinct: the figure painting is the mainstay. Moreover, it is all the people around you!
She and her husband Carlos, to her children Isabet, Kinna, Richard and Harry, as well as Hispanic neighbors, African-American neighbors, whether famous social activists, ordinary people, and even bad teenagers on the streets, have become characters in her paintings.
Neil never had her own independent studio in her life, and the living room, dining room and even kitchen of the family were her studios. Her boyfriend, a photographer, once photographed her painting: Neil was painting in the living room, and her two sons were sitting obediently on the couch next to them.
Some commentators have said that Alice Neil's paintings have always been old-fashioned, there has not been much change in style, and the characters are not "beautiful". Neil's work is not "realistic", basically using an expressionist approach, that is, similar to the "freehand" brushwork in Chinese painting, in fact, Neil does not care about the so-called style and other techniques. She once said that painting is not necessarily a profession, but an obsession. She says I like to paint people who are in a fierce competition and who are under all the pressure and hurt associated with them.
Mothers and children of different skin tones in the exhibition
For Neil, stylistic innovation was not the focus, but daring to paint nude portraits of his underage daughters, paint nudes for himself, and paint nude portraits of many people with heads and faces at that time did require great courage. It can also be said that this is a revolutionary innovation in the subject matter.
She herself knows that painting nudes to underage daughters is absolutely not allowed to be exhibited in the gallery, but she just goes to paint! Of course, today's nude of the daughter," Isabetta (1934-1935), can already be exhibited in an elegant hall like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, becoming one of Neil's classics. The only child of Neil and her husband Carlos, Isabet was sent to Cuba after the age of two, where he was raised by his father and family, only to return to the United States on vacation to meet his mother twice, and this nude work was the work of Isabette when she was 6 years old when she was reunited with her mother Neil. Neil had only one husband, and neither went through the divorce process after his departure, and Neil's subsequent children were born to her and her other boyfriends.
Exhibition site
Today's European and American social trends coincide with Neil's works
Alice Neil was a white man, but in her work, it seems that many Spanish-speaking and African-American people were deliberately painted, and it should be known that the American society at that time was not full of the slogan of "Black Lives Matter" (black lives matter) today, and the labels of "feminism" or "feminism" were not conspicuous in society. Perhaps, this is her unique perspective as a member of the American Communist Party, always caring for the toiling masses.
In today's United States, there is a "overcorrection" revolution, and all museums must highlight "politically correct" themes such as "women" and "minorities". Neil has been dead for more than thirty years, and she does not know the current state of society, and believes that she did it unintentionally, but what is amazing is that her work is full of such "politically correct" content: African American, Hispanic, female... The Metropolitan Museum of Art also specially selected the works in the exhibition as huge posters to hang at the entrance of the museum as a publicity for the exhibition, which is also a symbol.
Therefore, Neil's work is very contemporary social significance. (Author Chen Rubin)
Source: Art China