i-xxii Front matter.qxd - Brandeis Institutional Repository

50 / Neel’s Social Realist Artwas as unstable a model as capitalism itself. After Hitler’s rise to power in 1933,it appeared to be the political alternative to fascism, but its authority was underminedas early as 1934 by Stalin’s purges of dissidents; by the end of thedecade, the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939 and the Russian invasion of Finlandin November 1939 destroyed for many fellow travelers their faith in theSoviet system. Given the course of international politics, it is hardly surprisingthat the Communist Party USA was fraught with internal dissension, and thatMarxist literary and artistic theorists in the United States could not provide atranslation of changing Soviet policies appropriate to the vernacular of theAmerican milieu.The nature of Neel’s contribution to social realism is also difƒcult to chartbecause she did not occupy a leadership position either artistically or organizationally.Neel joined several of the artists’ organizations, such as the ArtistsUnion and its successor, United American Artists, and in addition participatedin Union-sponsored exhibits and protests. However, she left no paper trail ofher activities that can elucidate her stance on any of the issues of the decade.Nor was she singled out by galleries or museums to be shown in national exhibitions,such as the American Artists’ Congress Exhibition at the ACA galleriesin 1935 or the “America Today” exhibit in 1936. Finally, she was uninterestedin the monumentally scaled public mural commissions that might have helpedto establish her reputation, but concentrated instead on the medium of portraiture,a genre considered irrelevant to a collective art.Just as Neel’s presence in the landmark artistic events of the decade isghostly, so the connections between her Marxist-in„uenced aesthetics, her politicalbeliefs, and her art are elusive. A lifelong supporter of the ideals if notthe practice of communism, her participation in communist politics was erratic.13 Nonetheless, she was familiar with the aesthetic ideas of some of themost controversial communist writers in this country, among them MikeGold, journalist and author of Jews Without Money (1930), and V. J. Jerome,author of Culture in a Changing World (1947). In addition, she read many ofthe central texts of communist theory, which she purchased through AlexanderTrachtenberg’s International Publishers in New York. 14 Neither an intellectualdilettante nor a political naif, Neel was conversant with the principlesof Marxism and of International Communism. Although the exact dates andstatus of her Party membership cannot be established, she remained at theleast a fellow traveler when it was dangerous to do so (during the 1940s and1950s), and as Party stalwart even when, with the emergence of the New Left,she formed new alliances. Although Neel never severed her ties with the CommunistParty USA, her continued alliegance to its politics and philosophy mayhave had less to do with a commitment to the goal of establishing a communiststate than with her outrage at the gross inequalities perpetuated by capitalism