Alice Neel: I Am the Century

Contributions by Kelly Richman-Abdou, Jennifer Higgie, Mira Schor, and Annie Sprinkle 
 
This catalog was conceived as a tool to discover and understand the work of Alice Neel, presented for the first time in Italy on the occasion of the retrospective of the same name at Pinacoteca Agnelli. Published in English and Italian, the book follows the exhibition layout: the authors’ contributions are followed by images of the 60 works presented, divided into six sections—The Social Body; Life and Death, and Life; The Psychological Gaze; The Naked Truth; Familiar Spaces; Zeitgeist—mirroring the six rooms in the exhibition. Each of these thematic sections is preceded by an introductory text, and the publication concludes with a chronology, compiled by the editors, that links Neel’s life to analyses of 30 of her works in the exhibition. The author contributions includes an introduction by the curators, followed by four essays: Kelly Richman-Abdou examines Neel’s exploration of the theme of motherhood in the early phase of her artistic career, offering an interesting comparison with some of the works the artist may have seen during her visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Jennifer Higgie reflects on Neel’s interest in self-portraiture, a genre that the artist rarely explored during her career; Mira Schor revisits her twenty-year research on the formal aspects that allow Alice Neel to be considered a great abstract artist; Annie Sprinkle, whose portrait is included in the exhibition, recounts her experience of posing for Neel and the development of their friendship.