Review: Alice Neel’s People

at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alice Neel. Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian (1978). Oil on canvas, 46.75” x 36.75”. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, by exchange, through an anonymous gift.© The Estate of Alice Neel.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s survey of paintings by Alice Neel titled People Come First is stunning. Several rooms on the museum’s second floor contain numerous figurative paintings and portraits made by an artist whose vibrant color palette provided the way in to every one of her pieces. While the display of paintings is more thematic and less…