Alice Neel's Moving Retrospective at Centre Pompidou

Alice Neel, The Spanish Family (1943). Oil on canvas. 86.4 x 71.1 cm. © The Estate of Alice Neel and David Zwirner. Photo: Malcolm Varon.

Alice Neel, The Family (John Gruen, Jane Wilson and Julia) (1970). Oil on canvas. 153 x 147.3 cm. Exhibition view: Alice Neel, An Engaged Eye, Centre Pompidou, Paris (5 October 2022–16 January 2023). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Annabel Downes, Ocula Advisory.

Alice Neel, Harold Cruse (c. 1950). Oil on canvas. 94 x 55.9 cm. Exhibition view: Alice Neel, An Engaged Eye, Centre Pompidou, Paris (5 October 2022–16 January 2023). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Annabel Downes, Ocula Advisory.

Alice Neel, Rita and Hubert (1958). Oil on canvas. 86.4 x 101.6 cm. Exhibition view: Alice Neel, An Engaged Eye, Centre Pompidou, Paris (5 October 2022–16 January 2023). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Annabel Downes, Ocula Advisory.

By Rory Mitchell – 26 October 2022, Paris

Hands clasped. Hands splayed. Hands gripped. Hands protecting.

Often green in tone, and somewhat spindly, the hands in Alice Neel‘s paintings frequently reveal the stories and personalities of her sitters.

In The Spanish Family (1943), Neel depicts Margarita Negrón with three of her children. With her right arm, she grips her baby who sits on her lap, while her left hand rests facing upward on her leg. Her young son sits close on her right, clasping his hands together in a somewhat mature fashion, while her daughter clings to the bottom of her mother’s dress on the opposite side.

Margarita’s body language and weary expression, coupled with her children’s gravitation towards their mother, reinforces her resoluteness—appearing almost resigned in her motherhood.

A staggering retrospective, Alice Neel: Un regard engagé (An Engaged Eye) (5 October 2022–16 January 2023) is now showing at the Centre Pompidou until 16 January 2023. The exhibition will later travel to the Barbican Centre in London, where it will be on show from 16 February to 21 May 2023.