At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World : a fab new solo show at Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Its been some 20 years since the Victoria Miro Galley in London presented, the first exhibition in Europe dedicated to the  work of the the legendary American feminist artist Alice Neel. She is considered one of the greatest American portraitists of the 20th century and recognized for her paintings of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers in a  career that spanned over 60 years.

Now 20 years after her  Miro  Gallery debut (and some 40 years after her death) her art is back in London for her ninth solo show at Miro’s and this one is titled   At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World. This exhibition focuses on her paintings of people from queer communities and those who were a part of their circle. The works on view include paintings of writers, performers and artists, as well as friends and neighbours – together forming a collective portrait that both embodies and complicates an understanding of the queer world of Neel’s moment and the artist’s place within it. This exhibition includes ‘not just portraits of gay people but those of theorists, activists, politicians, and so on who would qualify as queer by virtue of their different take in their given field and thus the world. So doing, they reflect Alice’s own interest in and commitment to difference.’’

Brian Buczak, 1983

Martin Jay, 1932

Dennis Florio, 1978

Allen Ginsberg, 1966

Highlights include paintings of figures such as Frank O’Hara (one of two paintings of the poet and curator completed by Neel in 1960); the provocative Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, whom she painted from memory in 1966 after seeing him at a performance; performance artist and sexual icon Annie Sprinkle (1982); and Andy Warhol in a drawing (c.1970) inscribed to performers Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd – further reflecting Neel’s interest in various creative and avant-garde communities. Also on view will be related archival material that illuminates the lives and accomplishments of the individuals depicted by Neel and their surrounding historical and cultural contexts. These subjects, united here through a connecting thread of difference, demonstrate the breadth of Neel’s work and the unfettered scope of her humanist vision.

The Exhibition is curated by The New Yorker’s Hilton Als  who told Queerguru ‘When she died in 1984, Neel had a great number of masterpieces to her credit, a galaxy of masterpieces, I would say, that bear witness to the terror we usually turn away from, having no language for it, namely alienation, disconnect, love. […]

At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World

Curated by Hilton Als

Exhibition: 30 January–8 March 2025
16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
Tuesday–Saturday: 10am–6pm