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Alice Neel

Nancy Selvage
Now On View

Maker

Alice Neel (American, 1900-1984

Title

Nancy Selvage

Year

1967

Medium

  • Oil on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Oil on canvas

Materials

oil paint

Supports

  • canvas

Dimensions

96.8 x 61.3 cm (38 1/8 x 24 1/8 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signature: Signed LL:Neel'67

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Richard and Hartley Neel

Object Number

1994.086

Type

  • Paintings

Publications

  • Journal

Manual / Issue 4: Blue

  • Books

Selected Works

Exhibition History

Art and Design from 1900 to Now
Jun 04, 2022 – Sep 01, 2026

Label copy

Alice Neel used bold brushstrokes and deliberately left sections of this canvas unpainted. This created a directness and sense of emotional connection in her portrayal of the sculptor Nancy Selvage. 

Late in Neel’s long career, her piercing portraits gained acknowledgment with the rise of the feminist movement. Neel explained, “A good portrait of mine has even more than just the accurate features. It has some other thing. If I have any talent in relation to people, apart from planning the whole canvas, it is my identification with them.”

–Wai Yee Chiong, curator of Asian art

The Figure
Contemporary Works from the Collection
Mar 12, 2010 – Mar 03, 2011

Label copy

In the 1960s, when abstraction was the dominant style in art, Alice Neel continued to work in a figurative mode, creating portraits of her friend and fellow artist Nancy Selvage. Using expressionistic line and vivid color, Neel captures the particular idiosyncrasies of her subject. Characteristically, she left sections of the canvas unpainted, thereby giving the portrait a sense of immediacy. After years of neglect, Neel gained recognition in her later years, as the women’s movement generated interest in the personal subject matter of her paintings.

Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Art
Jul 07, 1995 – Sep 02, 1995

Image use

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In copyright This object is in copyright

Tombstone

Alice Neel (American, 1900-1984
b. in Pennsylvania)
Nancy Selvage, 1967
Oil on canvas
96.8 x 61.3 cm (38 1/8 x 24 1/8 inches)
Gift of Richard and Hartley Neel 1994.086

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