January 28, 1900

Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 to October 13, 1984) ) was an artist of extraordinary talent; her portraits are on a par with Lucien Freud's.

One critic said of her work:

Everything in Neel's art counts, in all its varying registers. She took her subjects as they came – naked and hairy, voluptuous, nervous, arrogant, dying or dead. She painted uptown sophisticates and troubled artists, the very young and very old, people's vanities and vulnerabilities.

This kind of talent and honesty (she painted herself naked, when she was eighty) can make for uncomfortable viewing. I am glad that cats have no psychological knots to be exposed. Here is one of her cat drawings:





Lucky world that produced an Alice Neel.