Alice Neel

This portrait of the artist Nancy Selvage as a young woman is defined by its bold lines, intense colors, and the subject’s confrontational gaze. The sense of immediacy is further accentuated by the starkly non-descript background, with sections of the canvas left unpainted.

Neel reinvigorated the portrait genre by disarmingly capturing the personalities and vulnerabilities of her subjects and creating a sometimes discomforting emotional connection with the viewer. Neel’s son Hartley, who was painted many times by his mother, later said that sitting for a portrait by Neel was “like an incredibly intensive interview.”