Alice NeelPeople come first

A fervent feminist, committed to several political and societal fronts, the American painter Alice Neel has always put people at the heart of her work. From the victims of the Great Depression, to the inhabitants of Spanish Harlem, to the leaders of political organisations and homosexual artists, Alice Neel captures a society at its most sensitive as it goes through the upheavals of the 20th century. People Come First, based on a statement made by the artist in 1950, reviews Neel’s long career, including portraits, cityscapes, still lifes, erotic watercolours, and essays on the artist’s favourite themes, as well as deciphering her unique aesthetic, which fuses abstraction and figuration.