Daily Arte Appreciation
Acutely focused and psychologically charged, Alice Neel’s portraiture strips its sitters of their posturing and self-imposed facades, laying bare their identities at the time of execution. Neel took inspiration from every facet of her life, painting subjects from a mosaic of ethnic and class origins. Executed shortly after the artist lost the support of the Works Progress Administration for her involvement with the Communist Party, Connie from 1945 reveals the artist at a point of flux and transition; Neel pulls from myriad art historical sources and visual strategies, crafting a composition that, despite its multiple references, appears like nothing else.
Although Neel eschewed strict naturalism in her widely celebrated oeuvre, Connie has a singular specificity, divulging minute details about the subject that breathes life into her depiction. The sitter is in repose, supporting herself in a dense, compressed space. While the setting reveals little contextual information about the subject, this spatial distortion forces her to fold her body so that it is contained within the boundaries of the picture plane, crafting a sense of intimacy. Neel mimics the sensation of proximity, giving her figure a distinct realism despite her graphic style.
Connie’s clothes are prominent and highly delineated, effectively becoming their own subject matter and informing Neel’s depiction of her sitter’s identity. Neel’s subject wears a striking red and white striped shirt, long black pants and cork-heeled platform shoes, adding a veneer of glamour to her depiction. The sitter, the wife of one the artist’s wealthy patrons with whom Neel may have had a romantic entanglement, averts her gaze, crafting an aura of mystery and subverting the sense of power projected by her sartorial self-presentation.
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