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Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty Kindle Edition

by Phoebe Hoban (Author), Alice Neel (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 86 ratings
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“Neel emerges as a resolute survivor who lived by her convictions, both aesthetically and politically.” —Publisher’s Weekly

 

Phoebe Hoban’s definitive biography of the renowned American painter Alice Neel tells the unforgettable story of an artist whose life spanned the twentieth century, from women’s suffrage through the Depression, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and second-wave feminism. Throughout her life and work, Neel constantly challenged convention, ultimately gaining an enduring place in the canon.

Alice Neel’s stated goal was to “capture the zeitgeist.” Born into a proper Victorian family at the turn of the twentieth century, Neel reached voting age during suffrage. A quintessential bohemian, she was one of the first artists participating in the Easel Project of the Works Progress Administration, documenting the challenges of life during the Depression. An avowed humanist, Neel chose to paint the world around her, sticking to figurative work even during the peak of abstract expressionism. Neel never ceased pushing the envelope, creating a unique chronicle of her time. 
 
Neel was fiercely democratic in selecting her subjects, who represent an extraordinarily diverse population—from such legendary figures as Joe Gould to her Spanish Harlem neighbors in the 1940s, the art critic Meyer Schapiro, Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, Andy Warhol, and major figures of the labor, civil rights, and feminist movements—producing an indelible portrait of twentieth-century America. By dictating her own terms, Neel was able to transcend such personal tragedy as the death of her infant daughter, Santillana, a nervous breakdown and suicide attempts, and the separation from her second child, Isabetta. After spending much of her career in relative obscurity, Neel finally received a major museum retrospective in 1974, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York.
 
In this first paperback edition of the authoritative biography of Neel, which serves also as a cultural history of twentieth-century New York, Hoban documents the tumultuous life of the artist in vivid detail, creating a portrait as incisive as Neel’s relentlessly honest paintings. With a new introduction by Hoban that explores Neel’s enduring relevance, this biography is essential to understanding and appreciating the life and work of one of America’s foremost artists. 
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  1. Print length
    504 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    David Zwirner Books
  5. Publication date
    August 10, 2021
  6. File size
    40570 KB
  7. Page Flip
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  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hoban's (Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art) latest biography is a sweeping portrait of a colorful subject, the painter Alice Neel. It is also an effective cultural history of the artistic and political scene in 20th-century New York. This well-documented work brings to life a "collector of souls" whose passion for painting the human figure at a time when abstraction was the rage resulted in years of financial hardship and obscurity. Neel emerges as a resolute survivor who lived by her convictions, both aesthetically and politically. A single mother committed to a bohemian lifestyle, Neel was also a supporter of political movements that ranged from Communism to feminism. While this biography suffers at times from overly detailed accounts of the supporting players in Neel's life and from the author's occasional repetition, it is immensely absorbing, and soars at the end as Neel, in the later decades of her life, finally receives "the recognition she so long deserved." Photos.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Arts journalist and trailblazing biographer Hoban (Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, 1998) is the first to tell the story of artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in full. Determined, brainy, beautiful, self-absorbed, and profoundly unconventional, Neel “radicalized portraiture” in penetrating, often unnerving paintings of a diverse spectrum of individuals, from her neighbors in Spanish Harlem to Andy Warhol, baring his bullet wounds. Having gained access to heretofore private and stunningly illuminating materials, Hoban is commanding and entrancing as she chronicles Neel’s contrary temperament and tempestuous life. Neel’s marriage to Cuban artist Carlos Enríquez was passionate and doomed, and her brief spell with his wealthy family in Havana was followed by interminable struggles in New York. Neel barely survived poverty, the loss of children, suicidal depression, the destruction of several hundred of her drawings and paintings by a jealous lover, and a torrent of other traumas and tragedies. Yet she kept painting, achieving an “idiosyncratic blend of Expressionism, Symbolism and Surrealism often sharpened with satire.” Hoban writes with remarkable detail, vigor, and insight about Neel’s stint as a WPA artist, complex relationships, focus on social justice, obscurity during the abstract-expressionist years, and phoenixlike rebirth in the 1960s. Judicious and ardent, Hoban has created a galvanizing portrait of a “rebel artist” who remained true to her humanist convictions. --Donna Seaman

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09841TGJL
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ David Zwirner Books (August 10, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 10, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 40570 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 504 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 86 ratings

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Phoebe Hoban

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
86 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Gabrielle Ruvolo
5.0 out of 5 stars A Sensitive intimate portrait
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2011
Verified Purchase
Sensitively written, an engrossing story of a passionate difficult life. I am a fan of Alice Neel, the artist.
Her lifelong commitment to realism and how she developed her mature work under an intense NY art world critical milieu.
Neel with her tenacity and passion was constant in her beliefs, not following art world trends.
As a pioneer Neel was a bridge to portraitism and realism. A rich, well researched biography.
9 people found this helpful
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chelofilm
5.0 out of 5 stars The Art of Not Sitting Pretty
Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2014
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I became interested in Alice Neel when I saw a documentary about her on the Sundance Channel. Phoebe Hoban's lucid and spellbinding book is difficult to put down. I've stayed up well past bedtime on a number of nights because I'm so engrossed in the book. It's absolutely impossible to make Alice Neel uninteresting, and Hoban put together a wonderful book with quality reproductions of the paintings she discusses, and with pictures of Neel and her family. I recommend this book highly and hope to follow this book with Hoban's tome on Basquiat.
12 people found this helpful
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N. NATALE
4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written and readable bio
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2011
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Unlike many biographies, this one reads nicely with a lot of detail and doesn't really bog down into a list of facts until after Neel found success. It gave me a real sense of what went on in Neel's life and the development of her work. While the biographer seems adulatory, she also paints a picture of someone who seems to have had a narcissistic personality disorder. The way Neel neglected her kids and/or allowed them to be abused is really horrible and upsetting. After reading about that, I couldn't feel much empathy for her.
18 people found this helpful
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ELIZABETH
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent biography of Alice Neel.
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2018
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Excellent an engrossing book about Alice Neel's life.
Fascinating early years and how she survived thanks to the WPA.
Also how she dealt with the challenge of raising a family on her own, while staying true to her art form in the face of abstract expressionism.
Found her story an inspiring tale, filled with challenges, that she surmounted.
Highly recommend.
6 people found this helpful
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Pamela Farland
5.0 out of 5 stars informative biography
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2021
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Enjoyed reading a bout this artist's life & work and about the period she lived in.
One person found this helpful
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Ellie Siskind
3.0 out of 5 stars Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2013
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This is a faithful telling of Alice's life; however, I knew her personally and her fascinating personality doesn't come thru - did not finish reading the book, but will go back to it eventually.
13 people found this helpful
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Frances Owles
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2015
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Excellent condition
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S. S. Eckhoff
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2015
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Painters: read this book. It's a strongly-held portrait of an exasperating artistic powerhouse.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

marina nazarova
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in Canada on April 20, 2015
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The book arrived very fast! In a great condition. I started reading right away and can't stop. It's really well written. Very happy about my purchase.
One person found this helpful
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Ms. Mary Fletcher
4.0 out of 5 stars Alice Neel, a powerful painter.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2015
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Very readable biography which reveals Alice Neel as a flawed person with many problems in her life. Shockingly she did not protect one of her sons from ill treatment by a man she lived with for ten years.It was not until her 70's that she gained recognition, helped by the feminist movement despite not being an avowed member. The writer appreciates the paintings perceptively. I would have liked more reproductions of them.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2017
Verified Purchase
Lack of images dulls the book considerably.
One person found this helpful
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