Centre Pompidou to Open Major Exhibition Dedicated to Alice Neel

This autumn, the Centre Pompidou will dedicate a major exhibition to Alice Neel. Six years after the retrospective held at the Van Gogh Foundation in Arles, Alice Neel: An Engaged Eye emphasizes Neel’s political and social activism, in connection to her membership in the Communist party and involvement in the women’s rights movement.
 
The exhibition is being shown exclusively in Paris and is divided into two parts loosely conceived, around notions of class struggle and the fight for gender equality. Each section is presented as a thematic retrospective, starting with her earliest works in the late 1920s, which were painted in Cuba, and finishing with the final paintings made shortly before her death in 1984. In all, some seventy-five paintings and drawings are on view, along with two extracts from a film about the artist made by French artist Michel Auder in the late 1970s, in addition to other film productions. A selection of unpublished documents is also included in the show.

The exhibition opens with works by two other artists: a portrait of the painter by Robert Mapplethorpe and a work by Jenny Holzer drawn from Alice Neel’s FBI record from October 1955, when FBI agents visited Neel—who had been under investigation since 1951 due to her ties to the Communist party—for questioning.

The exhibition will be presented at the Barbican Centre in London from February 16, 2023 to May 21, 2023.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same name, published in 2020, when the exhibition was originally scheduled but postponed due to COVID-19. To purchase the catalogue, visit Centre Pompidou’s Boutique.

The exhibition coincides with Paris+ par Art Basel, which takes place from October 20–23, 2022.

Learn more about the exhibition at Centre Pompidou.


Cover image: Alice Neel, Marxist Girl (Irene Peslikas), 1983 (detail). © The Estate of Alice Neel