Julie and Aristotle
Artist
Alice Neel
(American, 1900–1984)
Date1967
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 177.2 x 91.8 cm (69 3/4 x 36 1/8 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineStoddard Acquisition Fund
Object number2010.316
Label TextWith her early defiance by painting figurative work in the 1940s and 1950s during the height of Abstract Expressionism and her revival of portraiture as evidence of a human encounter during the 1960s when Pop’s detachment and irony were the rule, Alice Neel outlasted near obscurity to become one of the most influential American painters of her time. Julie (Hall) Alkaitis, the wife of a Dartmouth College friend of Neel’s son, Hartley, was one of the artist’s recurring subjects. Neel recognized in Julie, with her mini-dress and apprehensive glance, an embodiment of the decade’s cultural upheavals as well as an individual facing major changes in her life (she was in her early twenties and pregnant with her first child).
Neel, who repeatedly explored the roles of women, understood portraiture as a political gesture and often portrayed the family structure (in the context of feminism) as potentially oppressive. Here the familial power-relationship is played out not between husband and wife but between a woman/child and her domineering dog, Aristotle. Neel’s method of painting directly from life without preliminary sketches, her expressive brushwork, and strategy of isolating Julie and Aristotle in a stark white background resulted in a double portrait of relentless honesty and compelling psychological intensity. Neel described how her sitters would “unconsciously assume their most characteristic pose, which in a way involves all their character and social standing—what the world has done to them and their retaliation.”
ProvenanceSold to the Museum by the estate of the artist through the David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY.On View
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