Alice Neel's Personal Is Political

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Examining the statement “the Personal is Political” through the works of Alice Neel. The American portrait artist Alice Neel rose from obscurity as a result of “second wave” feminism, championed by feminist art critics and historians. Since the 1920s she had built a career painting the faces and psyche of the people that surround her. Subverting portraiture’s traditional themes of wealth and power her psychological portraits explore themes of motherhood, assigned gender roles, domestic violence and issue a challenge to the voyeuristic heterosexual male gaze. Themes largely unseen in painting at the time, these themes are in line with the agenda of the feminist movement of the 1970s which fought to highlight the gender imbalance.

Before examining the work of Alice Neel, it is important to understand the statement the “personal is political” and its origins. The “second wave” feminist movement sprung from the civil rights and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. The activism of this second wave of feminists highlighted the gender imbalance in both domestic and political settings, pushing for a rethinking of society within a …show more content…

Her work was included in the show Women Artists 1550-1950 that was co-curated by art historians Linda Nochlin and Ann Sutherland Harris. This was the first international exhibition of it’s kind to feature solely female artists. Neel had been working in general obscurity since the 1920s consistently exploring the themes of motherhood, the heterosexual male gaze, assigned gender roles, poverty and domestic violence in her portraits of neighbours, friends, and family. Her portraits reveal aspects of women’s lives obscured in western art history, deconstructing the ideals of muses, madonnas, and idealised nudes. (Bauer,

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