Alice Neel Quotes about Art

Alice Neel was a famous American feminist artist and portrait painter. She is best known for her loose, boldly colored, revealing portraits and nudes. Famous Alice Neel artworks include “Andy Warhol“, “Kitty Pearson”, “Dana Gordon”, “Benny and Mary Ellen Andrews”, “Dominican Boys on 108th Street”, “Sherry Speeth”, “Portrait of Girl in Blue Chair”, “Marxist Girl” and “Henry Geldzahler”.

Mini biography: Born Alice Hartley Neel on the 28th of January, 1900 in Merion Square, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Her mother was Alice Concross Hartley and her father George Washington Neel was an accountant. Neel married the Cuban painter Carlos Enríquez in 1925 and they had two children together, with one dying from diphtheria before her first birthday. Carlos Enríquez Gómez left Neel with their remaining child and returned to Cuba to raise her himself. She had two more children with two different men but never married again. The artist died on the 13th of October, 1984 in New York City, New York, USA at the age of 84.

List of Famous Alice Neel Art Quotes

It’s a privilege, you know, to paint. It takes up a lot of time and it means there’s a lot of things you don’t do. Alice Neel

In the process of painting someone, I reveal not only what shows, but what doesn’t show. Alice Neel

Whether I’m painting or not, I have this overweening interest in humanity. Even if I’m not working, I’m still analyzing people. Alice Neel

Life begins at seventy! Alice Neel

I get terribly involved, so that I leave myself, and I go into that person. So sometimes after the person goes, I feel just as though I have an empty inside, that I have nothing inside. Alice Neel

One of the reasons I painted was to catch life as it goes by, right hot off the griddle, because when painting or writing are good it’s taken right out of life itself, to my mind. Alice Neel

You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you have, the better it is.. unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far. Alice Neel

I thought you had to give up a lot for art, and you did. It required complete concentration. It also required that whatever money you had had to be put into art materials. Alice Neel

I couldn’t give up what I was interested in for what was the fashion. Alice Neel

You can’t leave humanity out. If you didn’t have humanity, you wouldn’t have anything. Alice Neel

Portraits are where more crimes are committed than any other form of art. I mean, witness the college professors that hang on walls in petrified form. I think they’re frightful. But I break those rules, and they’re considered bold by timid people. They’re not really bold. They’re just the truth, you know? Alice Neel

With me painting was more than a profession. It was also an obsession. I had to paint, you know. Alice Neel

It isn’t what appeals to me, it’s just a fact of life. It’s a very important part of life and it was neglected. I feel as a subject it’s perfectly legitimate, and people out of a false modesty, or being sissies, never show it, but it is a basic fact of life. Also, plastically, it is very exciting.. I think its part of the human experience. Something that primitives did, but modern painters have shied away from because women were always done as sexual objects. A pregnant woman has a claim staked out; she is not for sale. Alice Neel

The road that I pursued and the road that I think keeps you an artist was that no matter what happened to me, you still keep on painting. You just should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is. Because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you can have, the better it is. Unless it kills you, and then you know you’ve gone too far. Alice Neel

Alice Neel Nude Self-Portrait Painting

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Elaine de Kooning, David Hockney, Frida Kahlo, Joan Mitchell and other Famous American Artists.