Alice Neel is in spectacles, striped chair and nothing else. She is 80, cheeks flushed from the effort of being true to herself – “It was so damned hard.” The paintbrush in her hand is directed straight at the naked breast. One eyebrow is raised, rhyming with an energetically upturned toe below. It is a vision of superlative defiance.
Neel’s self-portrait – by now as famous as she is – rightly opens this startling show. The floor has been painted gold, to match the frame, and her shining intelligence. Neel (1900-84) deserves her cult status in American art: a lifelong feminist, humanitarian, activist and braveheart; a woman who painted stubbornly figurative images all the way through abstract expressionism, minimalism and pop, who received scarcely any coverage or wall space.
