Face the truth
One of Alice Neel's most arresting paintings was shown two years ago, in the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition of portraits by American artists of famous American sitters.
Painted when she was 80, four years before her death, the naked selfportrait shows Neel holding a brush in one hand and a paint rag in the other.
She made for a steely and somewhat formidable-looking figure. One felt a marked contrast between her withered flesh and her imperious gaze. It is the same harsh gaze she casts over her sitters.
This exhibition, comprising a handful of portraits, is the first to take place in Europe. Although she has been shown in one or two group shows in Britain, she is little known over here, while recognition in the US came late in her career, when she was already in her 60s. During this period of late flourishing, her sitters were principally friends and artists in the New York art scene.
Neel's style is quick and animated, often the result of painting directly on to the canvas rather than doing preparatory sketches. Hands are almost as important as faces and one is occasionally reminded of the twisted hands in an Egon Schiele painting. Appearing to have a life of their own, they can seem to tell a different story to that of the calm or fixedly grinning visage.
Containing something of the caricaturist's art, Neel's portraits may not have much psychological depth but there is certainly a freshness and an honesty about them.
Until Jul 31, Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Road N1, Tue to Sat 10am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7336 8109. Tube: Old Street
A Chronicle Of New York 1950-1976: Alice Neel
