(Above) Alice Neel, Nancy and the Twins (5 Months) (1971). Oil on canvas. © Estate of Alice Neel
Exhibition: Alice Neel – Painted Truths, Whitechapel Gallery, London, until September 17 2010
In an age of materialism, she called herself a "collector of souls". Alice Neel believed herself to capture the essence of her subjects and, going by the title of this personable show at Whitechapel, the gallery believes it too.
A famous portrait of Andy Warhol might put the claim to a test. The pop artist seems known to us from photographs, books, film and of course his work. But Neel portrays him partially naked, scarred from the attempt on his life, eyes closed as if in disdain of the taking of his soul.
Yet there is a realism to the painting which convinces, because the truths among this collection of paintings are emotional, rather than visual.
Alice Neel, Andy Warhol (1970). Oil on canvas. © Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, gift of Timothy Collins
The portrait, Sam, also conveys the force of a real personality using non-literal means. Neel paints her onetime lover with bulging cranium, one eye higher than the other and squared off lips. But it takes a while to notice the distortions.
Cubist touches, Van Gogh brushstrokes and backgrounds straight from Munch are all picked up in this show and put to work in the name of psychology. Neel saw no need to reinvent traditional painting in the way her New York peers in the 1950s and 1960s clearly did.
But it could be said that in a thematic way she broke new ground. Three female nudes here are pregnant. A male nude, John Perreault, lolls on a bed with the passivity of an odalisque. Mothers with children appear more helpless than saintly. Kids are painted with a matter-of-fact nakedness.
Thanks to pictures like these, the word "unflinching" is often used to describe Neel's art. Indeed what else can you say about the nude Self Portrait painted when the artist was 80? Aging is another less often painted area of experience, which she dwells on.
By expanding the scope of portraiture and shifting the emphasis from appearance to affect, Alice Neel could make you see people differently, and perhaps more truly.
Admission £8.50/£6.50. Open 11am – 6pm Tuesday – Sunday (9pm Thursday).
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