Throughout her life, Alice Neel (1900–1984) developed a unique talent for identifying particular gestures and mannerisms that reveal the singular identities of her sitters. Yet, she was also acutely aware of changes in spirit and in flesh, and how these changes might reveal themselves over minutes, days or decades. Neel’s paintings of the same subject invite consideration of her desire and motivation to look and paint again, in addition to the constancy of her vision and the unwavering visual and emotional intelligence she applied to others. Neel completed just four paintings of her mother, Alice Concross Hartley Neel (1868–1954), two of which are on view in this presentation: My Mother, 1930; and My Mother, 1952. Painted 22 years apart, they reveal a strong empathy for the changes in body and mind that accompany old age. Yet, just as striking is an unusual dynamic – that of the artist looking and, just as powerfully, being looked at by her subject.

Alice Neel was born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1900 and died in 1984 in New York.  Upcoming exhibitions include two major retrospectives: Alice Neel: People Come First will open in March 2021 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Alice Neel: Un regard engagé will open at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in October 2022. Her work is in the collections of major museums including the the Art Institute of Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Denver Art Museum; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Tate, London and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.