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Lot Essay
Throughout her career Alice Neel captured on canvas a diverse range of people who made up the cultural landscape of New York in the latter part of the twentieth century. From artists to critics, writers to journalists and even the salesman for the Fuller Brush Company, Neel's subjects were as diverse and expressive as the manner in which she painted them. In Portrait of Vivien Leone, Neel's subject was a writer and feminist thinker who had known the artist for a number of years. Dressed in a striking combination of red and green dress topped off with a green cowpoke hat, this portrait is emblematic of Neel's paintings in which the artist manages to capture the character of her sitters in her unique painterly style.
The striking vivid green hat that Leone wore was something that appealed to both artist and sitter. Leone's father was a hatter during the first half of the twentieth century and instilled in his daughter a love of hats which continued throughout her life and resulted in a large collection of millinery. Hats too were also important to Neel and feature in a number of her celebrated portraits of women. Dress became an important part of Neel's compositions, and throughout her career she had been attracted to unusual aspects of clothing (C. Carr, 'Alice Neel: Women. Mirror of Identity,' Alice Neel: Women, New York, 2002, p.13). The vivid green of Leone's garment was a particular favorite of the sitter (she referred to it as her "Robin Hood dress") and was designed by Moregan Zale, whom Leone described as "the great feminist -seamstress-tailor-upholsterer" (V. Leone, Story of a Portrait, reprinted from Chelsea, no. 48, New York, 1989, n.p.). She chose to pair it with the similarly green cowpoke hat which Neel admired and which, during a previous meeting, Neel had specifically requested Leone wear for her sitting. For Leone the hat had become symbolic of a stage in her life when she felt many mature women had become invisible to society "As an older woman, you become 'missable,' and people tend not to see you," she said, "but a hat puts you back in the picture" she said (V. Leone, quoted by S. Slesin, 'Atop Gramercy, A Tribute to Women,' New York Times, March 23, 1989 n.p.).
One of the foremost figure painters of the post-war period, Alice Neel was persistent and determined in the pursuit of her unique form of painting when it was widely deemed to be the most unfashionable of genres. The originality and quiet power of her work ultimately came to be recognized in the wake of her first retrospective at the Whitney in 1974 and since then her reputation has since grown to the point where she has gained a unique and iconic status in the history of American painting. Neel's paintings grew out of the Social Realist concerns of American Art of the 1920s and 1930s, during which time she formed her highly personal brand of figuration. Her paintings often incorporated a strict, self-imposed formula yet working within these confines, Neel created a surprisingly wide range of works, all of which-whatever their subject matter-possess an expressive paint quality that, in the case of Portrait of Vivien Leone results in an intensely probing painting.
The striking vivid green hat that Leone wore was something that appealed to both artist and sitter. Leone's father was a hatter during the first half of the twentieth century and instilled in his daughter a love of hats which continued throughout her life and resulted in a large collection of millinery. Hats too were also important to Neel and feature in a number of her celebrated portraits of women. Dress became an important part of Neel's compositions, and throughout her career she had been attracted to unusual aspects of clothing (C. Carr, 'Alice Neel: Women. Mirror of Identity,' Alice Neel: Women, New York, 2002, p.13). The vivid green of Leone's garment was a particular favorite of the sitter (she referred to it as her "Robin Hood dress") and was designed by Moregan Zale, whom Leone described as "the great feminist -seamstress-tailor-upholsterer" (V. Leone, Story of a Portrait, reprinted from Chelsea, no. 48, New York, 1989, n.p.). She chose to pair it with the similarly green cowpoke hat which Neel admired and which, during a previous meeting, Neel had specifically requested Leone wear for her sitting. For Leone the hat had become symbolic of a stage in her life when she felt many mature women had become invisible to society "As an older woman, you become 'missable,' and people tend not to see you," she said, "but a hat puts you back in the picture" she said (V. Leone, quoted by S. Slesin, 'Atop Gramercy, A Tribute to Women,' New York Times, March 23, 1989 n.p.).
One of the foremost figure painters of the post-war period, Alice Neel was persistent and determined in the pursuit of her unique form of painting when it was widely deemed to be the most unfashionable of genres. The originality and quiet power of her work ultimately came to be recognized in the wake of her first retrospective at the Whitney in 1974 and since then her reputation has since grown to the point where she has gained a unique and iconic status in the history of American painting. Neel's paintings grew out of the Social Realist concerns of American Art of the 1920s and 1930s, during which time she formed her highly personal brand of figuration. Her paintings often incorporated a strict, self-imposed formula yet working within these confines, Neel created a surprisingly wide range of works, all of which-whatever their subject matter-possess an expressive paint quality that, in the case of Portrait of Vivien Leone results in an intensely probing painting.