BALTIC+

Alice Neel: Uptown

Alice Neel: Uptown
Library Shelf Location 18.NEEL
Publication Date 2017
Description

Pulitzer Prize winner Hilton Als on Alice Neel's quietly political portraits of her uptown New York neighbors

Known for her portraits of family, friends, writers, poets, artists, students, singers, salesmen, activists and more, Alice Neel (1900-84) created forthright, intimate and, at times, humorous paintings that quietly engaged with political and social issues. In Alice Neel, Uptown, writer and curator Hilton Als brings together a body of paintings and works on paper of African Americans, Latinos, Asians and other people of color for the first time. Highlighting the innate diversity of Neel's approach, the selection looks at those often left out of the art-historical canon and how this extraordinary painter captured them; "what fascinated her was the breadth of humanity that she encountered," Als writes.

The publication explores Neel's interest in the diversity of uptown New York and the variety of people among whom she lived. This group of portraits includes well-known figures such as playwright, actress and author Alice Childress, the sociologist Horace R. Cayton, Jr., the community activist Mercedes Arroyo; and the widely published academic Harold Cruse, alongside more anonymous individuals of a nurse, a ballet dancer, a taxi driver, a businessman and a local boy who ran errands for Neel.

In short and illuminating texts on specific works written in his characteristic narrative style, Als writes about the history of each sitter and offers insights into Neel and her work, while adding his own perspective. A contemporary and personal approach to the artist's oeuvre, Als' project is "an attempt to honor not only what Neel saw, but the generosity of her seeing."

ISBN 9780993442032
Quantity 1
Pages 141 pages; 27 cm
Editor Lucas Zwirner
Authors Hilton Als, Jeremy Lewison
Format Hardback
Publishers David Zwirner Books, New York, Victoria Miro Gallery, London
Related Artist Alice Neel
Categories Artist (relating to a single artist/collaborative team), Painting
Artist's Nationality American (USA)
Language English

Other Artists

Other Recent Books