Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Alice Neel: Portrait of a Lady
Nina P. West
Forbes 09.17.07
Alice Neel, a 20th-century American painter from Spanish Harlem, turned out to be the breakout star of Christie's recent contemporary art auction. Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat usually grab the headlines at superstar-focused auctions, but savvy insiders were paying special attention to Alice Neel's portrait, "Roberta Johnson Roensch." They predicted it would take off. They were right. The portrait of a wide-eyed young bride sold for nearly half a million dollars at Christie's Sept. 10 auction of Post War and Contemporary Art. The painting, on the auction block for the first time since it was created in the '40s, sold to a private U.S. collector after strong bidding for $445,000. It was expected to fetch between $50,000 and $70,000. It also set a new record for any Alice Neel painting at auction. The previous record, for the portrait "Peter B. Kaplan" was $216,000, sold at Sotheby's in 2006.
Alice Neel worked in relative obscurity most of her adult life. She lived in Spanish Harlem, where her friends and neighbors became the subjects of her portraits. Her art often reflected her personal life, which was complicated and at times tragic. Says her eldest son, Richard Neel, "We always had this dream that she would be recognized and she would be able to get some money from her work. It really did not work out that way when we were children." Late in her life, she did gain some broad recognition, but nothing like the applause her works receive today.
Artfact Analysis:
Why has it taken the auction market so long to accept Alice Neel into the contemporary art "major leagues?" Lack of exposure at auction may be one factor. Ms. Neel had a lover who slashed 60 of her paintings and burned 300 of her drawings. The market can hardly support an artist with relatively few works to sell. Her works also lack easy definition. Collectors of American Art don't consider Alice Neel part of the Ash Can School or the American Modernist School, and the glitzy works by Abstract Expressionists attract the Post-War collectors. Ms. Neel's paintings are simply off the radar of most collectors. The record-breaking price for the portrait "Roberta Johnson Roensch" does not change the entire market for her work. Use caution when assuming that all Alice Neel paintings have suddenly quadrupled in value. For many years, the average price at auction for a Neel portrait has hovered around $50,000. The art market is finally catching up to what scholars and museums have known for years, but, like so many artists, the quality of Ms. Neel's work can be uneven, so choose wisely.
For a larger perspective on Alice Neel, read the 374-page biography by art historian Pamela Allara entitled Pictures of People: Alice Neel's American Portrait Gallery. The 2007 film Documentary Alice Neel by her grandson Andrew Neel is also a wonderful personal study of the artist's life. For Alice Neel auction records over the past 15 years, consult Artfact.com for art and antiques with over 20 million auction results.
Forbes 09.17.07
Alice Neel, a 20th-century American painter from Spanish Harlem, turned out to be the breakout star of Christie's recent contemporary art auction. Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat usually grab the headlines at superstar-focused auctions, but savvy insiders were paying special attention to Alice Neel's portrait, "Roberta Johnson Roensch." They predicted it would take off. They were right. The portrait of a wide-eyed young bride sold for nearly half a million dollars at Christie's Sept. 10 auction of Post War and Contemporary Art. The painting, on the auction block for the first time since it was created in the '40s, sold to a private U.S. collector after strong bidding for $445,000. It was expected to fetch between $50,000 and $70,000. It also set a new record for any Alice Neel painting at auction. The previous record, for the portrait "Peter B. Kaplan" was $216,000, sold at Sotheby's in 2006.
Alice Neel worked in relative obscurity most of her adult life. She lived in Spanish Harlem, where her friends and neighbors became the subjects of her portraits. Her art often reflected her personal life, which was complicated and at times tragic. Says her eldest son, Richard Neel, "We always had this dream that she would be recognized and she would be able to get some money from her work. It really did not work out that way when we were children." Late in her life, she did gain some broad recognition, but nothing like the applause her works receive today.Artfact Analysis:
Why has it taken the auction market so long to accept Alice Neel into the contemporary art "major leagues?" Lack of exposure at auction may be one factor. Ms. Neel had a lover who slashed 60 of her paintings and burned 300 of her drawings. The market can hardly support an artist with relatively few works to sell. Her works also lack easy definition. Collectors of American Art don't consider Alice Neel part of the Ash Can School or the American Modernist School, and the glitzy works by Abstract Expressionists attract the Post-War collectors. Ms. Neel's paintings are simply off the radar of most collectors. The record-breaking price for the portrait "Roberta Johnson Roensch" does not change the entire market for her work. Use caution when assuming that all Alice Neel paintings have suddenly quadrupled in value. For many years, the average price at auction for a Neel portrait has hovered around $50,000. The art market is finally catching up to what scholars and museums have known for years, but, like so many artists, the quality of Ms. Neel's work can be uneven, so choose wisely.
For a larger perspective on Alice Neel, read the 374-page biography by art historian Pamela Allara entitled Pictures of People: Alice Neel's American Portrait Gallery. The 2007 film Documentary Alice Neel by her grandson Andrew Neel is also a wonderful personal study of the artist's life. For Alice Neel auction records over the past 15 years, consult Artfact.com for art and antiques with over 20 million auction results.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Paint, Easel, Bug Spray, Gun . . .
Artists find that working outdoors can be a struggle against natureArticle Comments (11) Email
By DANIEL GRANT
Wall Street Journal
August 28, 2009
The 19th century was the great age of plein-air landscape painting, when artists left their studios and took to the outdoors to capture not a romanticized vision of nature but the real thing. To help along the process, easels became more portable and paints were fit into small, squeezable tubes. However, other technical problems were not so easily overcome, such as the wind that could blow dirt onto a canvas or the canvas off the easel. The glare of the sun, rain and snow, biting insects or worrisome wild animals, as well as interruptions caused by fellow humans, all add to making what should seem like a delightful experience—drawing or painting in the fresh air—into a battle of wills. The struggle proved too much for Nancy Howe of East Dorset, Vt., a current member of the Society of Animal Artists, who used to bring her art supplies outside but now takes only a camera to capture forms and a sketchbook to record color values. "I can't get comfortable outside, and I get too distracted," she said. "Even if I have bug stuff on me, I can still see flies buzzing around me. I can't work like that."
Perhaps cameras should be included in portable paint sets, since so many wildlife and plein-air artists rely on their photographs to capture the out-of-doors back in their studios. For that matter, one might include guns and flatbed trucks as plein-air accouterments, since a number of artists use one or the other (sometimes, both) when they set out to paint. John Seerey-Lester of Osprey, Fla., and Linda Tippetts of Augusta, Mont., both painters, bring revolvers along for protection—he (primarily) from animals, since he is a wildlife artist, and she from people who might bother her. "I've been in places where I put my pistol on the easel," she said. "I've never had to use it, but I want people to see it's there." Another artist, Walt Gonske of Taos, N.M., carries a mace gun, which he also has never used, but he has known human-caused danger. "Once, I had a beer can thrown at me from a car going 50 miles an hour," he said.
Dangers of painting outdoors can be quite real. In 1996, painter Stephen Lyman hiked into Yosemite National Park and fell, dying of exposure; and wildlife artist Simon Combes was killed by a charging cape buffalo while walking in Kenya in late 2004. Framingham, Mass., painter Ben Aronson had a shotgun aimed at him by a farmer on whose land he had been trespassing ("I was in a field where there was nothing to steal, but I was clearly an oddity"). Asking permission before going on private property is always a good idea. So is not provoking animals. "I threw stones at an elephant to get good photographs of an angry elephant," said Bernardsville, N.J., wildlife artist Guy Coheleach. "That was a stupid thing to do. I got a better sense of what a terrified artist looks like." And Ken Auster, a plein-air painter who lives in Laguna Beach, Calif., learned the hard way that purchasing a tides book made sense after he got caught on a beach between two rocky points when the tide was coming in and there was no way to get out other than to swim—he had to hold his easel, paint box and canvas above the water for several hours until the tide went back out.
With many years of painting on beaches under his belt, Mr. Auster cautioned against using large canvases outdoors ("the wind blows them like a sail"), wearing flip-flops ("they kick sand up at the paintings as you walk"), and trying to pick off grains of sand that have been blown on the canvas by the wind: "Don't touch it," he said. "Just wait till it dries and the sand will fall off on its own." Artists are by nature problem-solvers, and painters who work outdoors find that they need to come up with a variety of creative solutions to the difficulties they face. Attaching an umbrella to an easel may block rain and sun, although a gust of wind once filled up Linda Tippetts' umbrella like a sail, carrying her easel into a ravine. Santa Barbara, Calif. pastel artist Glenna Hartmann has used her umbrella largely to scare away mules and horses ("the noise and action of flipping it open and closed a few times disconcerts them").
The travails of painting outdoors, while frequently discussed among plein-air artists, are never mentioned in histories of landscape painting, nor have great artists described these problems in their diaries or correspondence. One might imagine Claude Monet, standing outside and painting picture after picture of the same French haystacks, swatting the flies he undoubtedly attracted, but he apparently never brought up the subject in letters. Vincent van Gogh complained about everything under the sun in letters to his brother, but mosquitoes never entered into the correspondence. Mr. Aronson, on the other hand, recalled at length his experience being crop-dusted while painting in a wheat field ("the painting was destroyed, needless to say"), the day after being chased out of a different field by a bull and the day before setting up his easel on a red ant hill ("I did quite a dance when I saw what was coming up my leg").
But perhaps the oddest sight of all is Jamie Wyeth, who kneels inside a four-foot high, seven-foot long, three-sided wooden bait box when he goes outside to paint on Monhegan Island, Maine. (He puts a heater in during cold weather.) "My box is mainly for privacy," he said, noting that "I find it extremely bothersome when people talk to me while I'm painting. If I don't say anything to them when they ask a question, or if I tell them I don't like to talk while I'm working, then I feel terrible that I've been rude. Inside the box, people see that I clearly don't want to talk, and they eventually scurry away."
—Mr. Grant is the author of "The Business of Being an Artist" (Allworth).
By DANIEL GRANT
Wall Street Journal
August 28, 2009
The 19th century was the great age of plein-air landscape painting, when artists left their studios and took to the outdoors to capture not a romanticized vision of nature but the real thing. To help along the process, easels became more portable and paints were fit into small, squeezable tubes. However, other technical problems were not so easily overcome, such as the wind that could blow dirt onto a canvas or the canvas off the easel. The glare of the sun, rain and snow, biting insects or worrisome wild animals, as well as interruptions caused by fellow humans, all add to making what should seem like a delightful experience—drawing or painting in the fresh air—into a battle of wills. The struggle proved too much for Nancy Howe of East Dorset, Vt., a current member of the Society of Animal Artists, who used to bring her art supplies outside but now takes only a camera to capture forms and a sketchbook to record color values. "I can't get comfortable outside, and I get too distracted," she said. "Even if I have bug stuff on me, I can still see flies buzzing around me. I can't work like that."
Perhaps cameras should be included in portable paint sets, since so many wildlife and plein-air artists rely on their photographs to capture the out-of-doors back in their studios. For that matter, one might include guns and flatbed trucks as plein-air accouterments, since a number of artists use one or the other (sometimes, both) when they set out to paint. John Seerey-Lester of Osprey, Fla., and Linda Tippetts of Augusta, Mont., both painters, bring revolvers along for protection—he (primarily) from animals, since he is a wildlife artist, and she from people who might bother her. "I've been in places where I put my pistol on the easel," she said. "I've never had to use it, but I want people to see it's there." Another artist, Walt Gonske of Taos, N.M., carries a mace gun, which he also has never used, but he has known human-caused danger. "Once, I had a beer can thrown at me from a car going 50 miles an hour," he said.
Dangers of painting outdoors can be quite real. In 1996, painter Stephen Lyman hiked into Yosemite National Park and fell, dying of exposure; and wildlife artist Simon Combes was killed by a charging cape buffalo while walking in Kenya in late 2004. Framingham, Mass., painter Ben Aronson had a shotgun aimed at him by a farmer on whose land he had been trespassing ("I was in a field where there was nothing to steal, but I was clearly an oddity"). Asking permission before going on private property is always a good idea. So is not provoking animals. "I threw stones at an elephant to get good photographs of an angry elephant," said Bernardsville, N.J., wildlife artist Guy Coheleach. "That was a stupid thing to do. I got a better sense of what a terrified artist looks like." And Ken Auster, a plein-air painter who lives in Laguna Beach, Calif., learned the hard way that purchasing a tides book made sense after he got caught on a beach between two rocky points when the tide was coming in and there was no way to get out other than to swim—he had to hold his easel, paint box and canvas above the water for several hours until the tide went back out.
With many years of painting on beaches under his belt, Mr. Auster cautioned against using large canvases outdoors ("the wind blows them like a sail"), wearing flip-flops ("they kick sand up at the paintings as you walk"), and trying to pick off grains of sand that have been blown on the canvas by the wind: "Don't touch it," he said. "Just wait till it dries and the sand will fall off on its own." Artists are by nature problem-solvers, and painters who work outdoors find that they need to come up with a variety of creative solutions to the difficulties they face. Attaching an umbrella to an easel may block rain and sun, although a gust of wind once filled up Linda Tippetts' umbrella like a sail, carrying her easel into a ravine. Santa Barbara, Calif. pastel artist Glenna Hartmann has used her umbrella largely to scare away mules and horses ("the noise and action of flipping it open and closed a few times disconcerts them").
The travails of painting outdoors, while frequently discussed among plein-air artists, are never mentioned in histories of landscape painting, nor have great artists described these problems in their diaries or correspondence. One might imagine Claude Monet, standing outside and painting picture after picture of the same French haystacks, swatting the flies he undoubtedly attracted, but he apparently never brought up the subject in letters. Vincent van Gogh complained about everything under the sun in letters to his brother, but mosquitoes never entered into the correspondence. Mr. Aronson, on the other hand, recalled at length his experience being crop-dusted while painting in a wheat field ("the painting was destroyed, needless to say"), the day after being chased out of a different field by a bull and the day before setting up his easel on a red ant hill ("I did quite a dance when I saw what was coming up my leg").
But perhaps the oddest sight of all is Jamie Wyeth, who kneels inside a four-foot high, seven-foot long, three-sided wooden bait box when he goes outside to paint on Monhegan Island, Maine. (He puts a heater in during cold weather.) "My box is mainly for privacy," he said, noting that "I find it extremely bothersome when people talk to me while I'm painting. If I don't say anything to them when they ask a question, or if I tell them I don't like to talk while I'm working, then I feel terrible that I've been rude. Inside the box, people see that I clearly don't want to talk, and they eventually scurry away."
—Mr. Grant is the author of "The Business of Being an Artist" (Allworth).
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