i-xxii Front matter.qxd - Brandeis Institutional Repository

7A Gallery of Players:Artist-Critic-DealerWhen compiling her proletarian portrait gallery during the 1930s to 1950s,Neel included many writers but relatively few visual artists. After 1960, heroutput is divided between family portraits and portraits of members of the NewYork artworld, the artist-critic-dealer system. This shift in emphasis from amarginal group of writers to mainstream visual artists acknowledges the greatervisibility of ƒne artists within American culture in general after World War II.Although Neel had painted the occasional critic or dealer prior to 1960, for instance,Rose Fried, the director of the Pinocatheca gallery in 1939, or the criticDore Ashton in 1952, these portraits were exceptions rather than a continuingthematic. After World War II, the country’s prosperity and status as a worldpower provided a base for the exponential growth of art institutions and for anexpanding artworld that was able at last to encompass Neel.The years 1958–1962 were thus a period of transition for Neel artisticallyand personally. She actively sought venues for the exhibition of her work. Atthe same time, she began to broaden her artistic allegiances. She had been attendingFriday evening panel discussions at the Club (Eighth Street Club orArtists Club) at 39 East Eighth Street for the previous ƒve years or so in order tokeep “current.” Founded in 1949 by Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, AdReinhardt, Jack Tworkov, and Milton Resnik, the Club was the focal point of111