i-xxii Front matter.qxd - Brandeis Institutional Repository
i-xxii Front matter.qxd - Brandeis Institutional Repository i-xxii Front matter.qxd - Brandeis Institutional Repository
8The Women’s Wing:Neel and Feminist ArtSince God was made a man and all the symbols of strength and power havebeen made men, naturally women are male chauvinist enough to wish toidentify utterly with these magniƒcent beings, so there can be no femininesensibility because per se it would be inferior. I have always wanted to paintas a woman but not as the oppressive and power mad world thought awoman should paint . . . The enemy is perhaps not men but the very systemitself which also encourages men to oppress each other.Alice Neel, unpublished statement, January 24, 1972,Neel Arts, New York City.Sisterhood! . . . Why there’s nothing more competitive than the women’smovement. It just shows the competitiveness in American life.Neel interview with E. G. Porter, Jr., St. Louis Post Dispatch,December 14, 1975.To Neel, the three-pronged liberation of the 1960s—of blacks, gays, andwomen—must have seemed like the successful realization of the undergroundbattle she had fought in her art. During the 1970s, feminist activists in particularprovided her with ƒrm connections to the alternative artworld network that127
128 / The New York Art Networkthey were creating, and although Neel had ambivalent feelings about some ofthe rhetoric of 1970s feminism, she gratefully accepted the support and recognitionof younger feminist artists and art historians. As her artistic stature grew,so did the size of her canvases. Critical acceptance was re„ected visually in increasingartistic conƒdence, which compensated for her declining health andpermitted her to enjoy a particularly fertile late period. As the critic ThomasHess noted, now that “the spur of neglect and misunderstanding isn’t so sharp. . . [t]he light in her pictures has turned milder, almost rosy.” 1 Her belatedartistic success did not blunt her critical edge, however, and her portraits of themembers of the women’s art network look dispassionately at the professionalwoman of the 1970s, as she assumed new roles and new identities.For their part, the emerging generation of feminists drew from Neel an empiricalexample of their arguments and a living inspiration. The rewriting ofart history to include women required role models, and Neel personiƒed thecharacteristics those models demanded. Lawrence Alloway noted in 1974 that“Neel has a special status among women artists: she is a symbol of persistentwork and insufƒcient recognition.” 2 In 1981, the president of the Women’sCaucus for Art and dean of the Wayne State University Art School, Lee AnnMiller, described Neel as the “symbol of women’s struggles.” 3 To female arthistorians who had gone through years of classroom training without everstudying a woman artist’s work, the discovery of art of outstanding quality bywomen was part of their consciousness raising, providing an initial impetus forthe rewriting of art history. As Linda Nochlin argued in an in„uential early essay(1971), 4 if there were no great women artists, it was because women hadhad no access to the system, not because genius was exclusively male.Like Neel’s own con„icted status as rebel and celebrity, however, the feministeffort to rewrite art history was not without its own contradictions. Althoughbreaking down the barriers to entry into the system required the dismantling ofconcepts such as artistic “genius,” which had been couched in biased and outdatedterms, feminists nonetheless would ƒnd themselves reverting to the verycategories they had declared outmoded when describing an older artist’s accomplishments.For instance, one of Neel’s earliest and strongest supporters,Ann Sutherland Harris, confessed in her catalog essay for the retrospective sheorganized at Loyola Marymount University in 1979, “I am not easily impressednor inclined to hero-heroine worship but Alice seemed to me then and[seems] still a real genius.” 5 Neel understood the artworld too well not to noticethe contradictions within feminist criticism: its claims of sisterhood, onthe one hand, and its competitiveness on the other. 6 Neel’s own attitude towardthe movement was equally contradictory: both celebratory and critical,she alternately claimed herself as a foremother and distanced herself from therhetoric of women’s liberation.
- Page 99 and 100: 76 / Neel’s Social Realist Arthad
- Page 101 and 102: 78 / Neel’s Social Realist Artsis
- Page 103 and 104: 80 / Neel’s Social Realist Artpai
- Page 105 and 106: 82 / Neel’s Social Realist Artint
- Page 107 and 108: 84 / Neel’s Social Realist ArtFul
- Page 109 and 110: 86 / Neel’s Social Realist ArtDre
- Page 111 and 112: 88 / Neel’s Social Realist ArtIn
- Page 113 and 114: 6El Barrio:Portrait of Spanish Harl
- Page 115 and 116: 92 / Neel’s Social Realist Arttha
- Page 117 and 118: 94 / Neel’s Social Realist ArtSuc
- Page 119 and 120: 96 / Neel’s Social Realist Artwhe
- Page 121 and 122: 98 / Neel’s Social Realist Artcal
- Page 123 and 124: 100 / Neel’s Social Realist Artte
- Page 125 and 126: 102 / Neel’s Social Realist Artar
- Page 127 and 128: 104 / Neel’s Social Realist Artun
- Page 129 and 130: 106 / Neel’s Social Realist ArtPu
- Page 131 and 132: 108 / Neel’s Social Realist ArtWh
- Page 134 and 135: 7A Gallery of Players:Artist-Critic
- Page 136 and 137: A Gallery of Players / 113be lost a
- Page 138 and 139: A Gallery of Players / 115Campbell
- Page 140 and 141: A Gallery of Players / 117on Neel
- Page 142 and 143: A Gallery of Players / 119sidered b
- Page 144 and 145: A Gallery of Players / 121is a disr
- Page 146 and 147: A Gallery of Players / 123Neel’s
- Page 148 and 149: A Gallery of Players / 125“Batman
- Page 152 and 153: The Women’s Wing / 129Neel’s ƒ
- Page 154 and 155: The Women’s Wing / 131just and bi
- Page 156 and 157: The Women’s Wing / 133lenced the
- Page 158 and 159: The Women’s Wing / 135holding han
- Page 160 and 161: The Women’s Wing / 137historical
- Page 162 and 163: The Women’s Wing / 139“Three Am
- Page 164 and 165: The Women’s Wing / 141There exist
- Page 166: The Women’s Wing / 143Looking bac
- Page 170 and 171: 9Truth Unveiled:The Portrait NudeIn
- Page 172 and 173: Truth Unveiled / 149school, where s
- Page 174 and 175: Truth Unveiled / 151Nadya’s „es
- Page 176 and 177: Truth Unveiled / 153Nadya’s addic
- Page 178 and 179: Truth Unveiled / 155hand, Gold’s
- Page 180 and 181: Truth Unveiled / 157others were doi
- Page 182 and 183: Truth Unveiled / 159are played woul
- Page 184 and 185: in time—two ladies sitting in umb
- Page 186 and 187: Shifting Constellations / 163which
- Page 188 and 189: Shifting Constellations / 165was a
- Page 190 and 191: Shifting Constellations / 167liefs,
- Page 192 and 193: Shifting Constellations / 169origin
- Page 194 and 195: Shifting Constellations / 171ing ch
- Page 196 and 197: Shifting Constellations / 173by the
- Page 198 and 199: Shifting Constellations / 175void b
8The Women’s Wing:Neel and Feminist ArtSince God was made a man and all the symbols of strength and power havebeen made men, naturally women are male chauvinist enough to wish toidentify utterly with these magniƒcent beings, so there can be no femininesensibility because per se it would be inferior. I have always wanted to paintas a woman but not as the oppressive and power mad world thought awoman should paint . . . The enemy is perhaps not men but the very systemitself which also encourages men to oppress each other.Alice Neel, unpublished statement, January 24, 1972,Neel Arts, New York City.Sisterhood! . . . Why there’s nothing more competitive than the women’smovement. It just shows the competitiveness in American life.Neel interview with E. G. Porter, Jr., St. Louis Post Dispatch,December 14, 1975.To Neel, the three-pronged liberation of the 1960s—of blacks, gays, andwomen—must have seemed like the successful realization of the undergroundbattle she had fought in her art. During the 1970s, feminist activists in particularprovided her with ƒrm connections to the alternative artworld network that127