The Cycle of Life / Paintings by Alice Neel / First edition / Rare / As new.
Alice Neel (1900–1984) was the foremost American portraitist and one of the most engaging painters of her times. This exhibition catalogue includes paintings from the 1940s to the 1980s and shows subjects ranging from infancy to old age.
Neel was an acute observer of character and painted with an honest eye and trenchant wit. Her paintings of mothers and babies reveal her deep understanding of their close bond, while her depictions of the elderly reveal an empathy for the changes in body and mind that accompany old age. In between she scrutinises the vulnerability of the child, the gawkiness of adolescence, the energy of youth, the wisdom of middle age, and the serenity of later life.
Few 20th century artists have documented the life cycle with as penetrating a gaze as Alice Neel.