The People of Harlem in Paintings by Alice Neel

Ron Kajiwara, 1971

When Alice Neel painted his portrait, Ron Kajiwara was a graphic designer at Vogue; later, he became its design director. ‘Kajiwara’s face is a kind of mask here,’ Als says. ‘He and his family had been interned in California during the second world war when he was a kid, and he was gay, and there is something so forbidding about his character. He has been rejected by the world and here he is working in the white avant garde. His pose is a kind of armour. Alice is painting her inability to get further in; his beautiful self defence.’



The great US artist Alice Neel lived and painted in uptown New York when it was almost exclusively black and Hispanic. Hilton Als, curator of a show of her portraits from this period, discusses some of his favourite images.

Alice Neel, Uptown is at Victoria Miro, London N1 from 18 May-29 July. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, published by David Zwirner Books and Victoria Miro.

The Guardian:  The people of Harlem, as painted by Alice Neel – in pictures

Abdul Rahman, 1964

‘I know all the theory of everything,’ Alice Neel once said, ‘but when I paint I don’t think of anything except the subject and me.’ Abdul Rahman was a cab driver she painted more than once. Als: ‘What’s so powerful about a lot of Alice’s pictures of men is she doesn’t shy away from the erotic element. She lets it be known as part of the work. What is energising in this painting is the erotics of her looking. She looks at men the way men might look at women or other men. It is delectable to her.’

Two Girls, Spanish Harlem, 1959

The world treats your children as you have treated them,’ Neel once observed. And when she came to paint children, she was always concerned to treat them as equals. She also had some tricks to keep their attention. ‘She would suddenly miaow like a cat to keep the children interested while they were sitting,’ says Als. ‘I love this painting as a kind of perversion of a Sunday-school portrait. There is a kind of fierceness to the girls. Alice liked that. She wanted girls who would stand up to the challenge of being painted.’

Photograph: © The Estate of Alice Neel/courtesy the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston


This one gives me something of the vibe from Vincent van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters" and this one doesn't portray that bleakness but the feeling of his painting comes nevertheless.


See much more by Alice Neel via the source link and hopefully this sampling has given you a reason to do it.