0:00:02 > 0:00:09This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36For Alice Neel, painting was an obsession.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38"I had to paint," she said,
0:00:38 > 0:00:41"and for art's sake I had to give up everything."
0:00:41 > 0:00:44Born near Philadelphia in 1900, Alice Neel was
0:00:44 > 0:00:48an extraordinary and prolific painter and yet most of her life
0:00:48 > 0:00:52she was broke, living and working in obscurity.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57When Abstract Expressionism came into its own, Alice had
0:00:57 > 0:01:00already dedicated herself to figurative art, which was
0:01:00 > 0:01:04more or less frowned upon by the mid-20th century
0:01:04 > 0:01:06as too conventional.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09But Alice didn't care about being unfashionable, she had
0:01:09 > 0:01:13no conceptual idea other than to "paint the truth".
0:01:16 > 0:01:19She painted the people around her, she painted her own life,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23her hard, complicated and sometimes broken life.
0:01:24 > 0:01:29Tonight Imagine presents an intimate and revealing film about this
0:01:29 > 0:01:31remarkable woman and her work.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36It is alarmingly honest,
0:01:36 > 0:01:40at times upsetting and yet ultimately inspiring.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44It was made by Alice Neel's grandson Andrew.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47And here is the film-maker.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49- Hello, Andrew.- Hi.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53So what made you embark on this, why did you make the film?
0:01:53 > 0:01:58I felt like, being a family member, er, perhaps I could, um, bring some
0:01:58 > 0:02:03flesh and blood to the story of who she was and what she went through,
0:02:03 > 0:02:09and to do that I really used my...my father and my uncle.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14Um, Alice was dead, obviously, and so I...I used them,
0:02:14 > 0:02:16I would say I sort of bled them.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18So they had to begin to tell that story
0:02:18 > 0:02:21in a way they hadn't told it to anyone before, didn't they?
0:02:21 > 0:02:24Yeah. There was a certain amount of therapy in it, I'd say.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27I think that's what I tried to tap into,
0:02:27 > 0:02:34both the pain, um, that Alice and, uh, my father and
0:02:34 > 0:02:39uncle went through but, um, also what made it worth it.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43Why was it worth it? That's... That's the big question.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46Well, we're going to watch it now. Thank you, Andrew.
0:02:46 > 0:02:47Thank you.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53- Are you getting, erm, audio here? - Yeah.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02People want...stability.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04They want security and stability and...
0:03:06 > 0:03:09That's human nature, you know.
0:03:09 > 0:03:15Why does somebody...create an image, you know, of anything?
0:03:15 > 0:03:16Why?
0:03:16 > 0:03:17You know?
0:03:22 > 0:03:25I don't... I mean, I don't know.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28I mean, why are you sitting there with that camera...
0:03:31 > 0:03:32..making a movie?
0:03:55 > 0:03:56She frequently would, um...
0:03:58 > 0:04:00..put the sitter in the chair,
0:04:00 > 0:04:05in this corner, or on the couch,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07or in some other position in the room.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11And she would set her easel, like the easel is here, up
0:04:11 > 0:04:13and sit and paint...
0:04:14 > 0:04:18..right from about this position.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22In our apartments, whether we lived here or 21 East 108th Street,
0:04:22 > 0:04:25we always were surrounded by Alice's work.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27So, it's the most familiar thing.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30What have you done since Alice died?
0:04:30 > 0:04:35- You and Richard have just continued to rent it? For 20 years?- Yeah.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40I mean, we continued to do, erm...
0:04:40 > 0:04:44some business here, to rent it, and it also...
0:04:44 > 0:04:48conjures up our mother for us...
0:04:49 > 0:04:54..and to a certain extent, you know, you'd like to preserve that.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00I don't like Bohemian culture, frankly.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03I think that a lot of innocent people are hurt by it.
0:05:03 > 0:05:08I consider that I was hurt by it, and the people that engage in it
0:05:08 > 0:05:11really don't care about or don't feel responsible for those
0:05:11 > 0:05:14that are around them or those that depend on them.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17If people are in that position,
0:05:17 > 0:05:21you don't put them at risk by your behaviour.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25Do you think you were put to risk? I mean...
0:05:25 > 0:05:27Absolutely. I do.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31But, you know, that's... So what, you know?
0:05:33 > 0:05:36We always had this dream that she would be recognised
0:05:36 > 0:05:39and she'd be able to get some money from...from her work,
0:05:39 > 0:05:46and it really did not work out that way when we were children.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49SHE LAUGHS
0:05:52 > 0:05:55Do you know what it is? It's a beautiful thing aesthetically.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57It's a vase with fingers.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02And it's going somewhere but it hasn't arrived there.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05It's always in the process of becoming.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08'I wanted everything.'
0:06:08 > 0:06:11Yeah. I didn't want just art. I wanted everything.
0:06:11 > 0:06:12Everybody wants everything.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15It's just that they get practical... and they have to settle for
0:06:15 > 0:06:17a certain amount.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20But maybe I wasn't all that practical!
0:06:20 > 0:06:22So I ran into stone walls!
0:06:24 > 0:06:27She was a very important person for me, besides the fact that I
0:06:27 > 0:06:31liked her work a great deal, because she was one of the people who...
0:06:33 > 0:06:38..you know, had found a way to breathe new life into the portrait.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41I thought, "She can do it!"
0:06:41 > 0:06:44She was the first artist, erm,
0:06:44 > 0:06:46you know, that I saw a picture of
0:06:46 > 0:06:50that I thought, "Shit! How does she manage that?"
0:06:50 > 0:06:55She always has...still this energy, so the...
0:06:55 > 0:07:00Picasso does it too. When he's good, he gives you energy.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04There was almost like a direct, almost seismic...
0:07:04 > 0:07:09er...record with her hand of... of what she saw.
0:07:09 > 0:07:14It really felt very specific to the subject,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18and very personal, and that's not easy, you know, to do.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26There were pictures just everywhere.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28And they were stacked in ranks out from the walls.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32And it was also completely historically scattered
0:07:32 > 0:07:37and this sort of wonderful sense of sedimented painting,
0:07:37 > 0:07:41just all just mixed up together, all these people sort of on the walls.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45- You mean you didn't ever sell your work for years?- What?
0:07:45 > 0:07:48- You never sold any of your works for years?- Very little.
0:07:48 > 0:07:49So, how did you survive?
0:07:49 > 0:07:52And I didn't care, I have it, you know.
0:07:52 > 0:07:53Right.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57I'm four weeks older...
0:07:57 > 0:07:59younger than the century.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02I was born on 28th January 1900.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05Think of what a benighted world it was then.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10I was born at Merion Square, Pennsylvania.
0:08:10 > 0:08:12But then when I was small, about three months old,
0:08:12 > 0:08:15they moved to a little place called Colwyn, PA.
0:08:16 > 0:08:18You see, my family didn't have much money,
0:08:18 > 0:08:23so my conscience bothered me that I should be just fooling around
0:08:23 > 0:08:26with art when really everybody needed money.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28When I was 21, I went to
0:08:28 > 0:08:31the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35It's still just women, you know, although the funny thing is,
0:08:35 > 0:08:37the dean is always a man.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Of course, that's wrong, but that's the way it is.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44The reason I didn't go to the academy,
0:08:44 > 0:08:47I always had a more or less serious view of life.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49And you know what they were doing there?
0:08:49 > 0:08:52They were doing yellow lights, blue shadows.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55And I didn't see life as happy as that.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58You know, I didn't see picnics on the grass and all that stuff.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Yeah, I did that when I was very young.
0:09:05 > 0:09:06That was in '26.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13She met Carlos Enriquez at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art,
0:09:13 > 0:09:15their summer institute.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17And she talks about Carlos Enriquez not doing very much
0:09:17 > 0:09:19in that place,
0:09:19 > 0:09:22only really kind of courting her.
0:09:22 > 0:09:24I came out of that little town
0:09:24 > 0:09:27the most repressed virgin that ever lived!
0:09:27 > 0:09:30I met him in the summer school. Oh, he was gorgeous, yeah.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32Oh, it was very romantic, the whole thing.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35We got thrown out of the school, and you know what he said?
0:09:35 > 0:09:39He said he married a rabbit and it turned out to be a lion.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42So, I married him. I went to Cuba. And then...
0:09:42 > 0:09:46then, of course, all we did was paint day and night.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48They began to go to the poorest,
0:09:48 > 0:09:53most dilapidated parts of Havana, and she would paint people.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57And they, I think, began to get their style there.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03So at the beginning they move in with his parents.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06And I think Alice also speaks of the fact that they came back and
0:10:06 > 0:10:08lived with his parents.
0:10:08 > 0:10:11But apparently...there was tension.
0:10:11 > 0:10:17Families from that sort of social status would not have looked
0:10:17 > 0:10:19kindly upon a son being an artist.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23And then Alice becomes pregnant and she came back to
0:10:23 > 0:10:25the United States.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29This is called The Futility Of Effort.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33I had a child die in New York of diphtheria just
0:10:33 > 0:10:38a year before they discovered that injection that prevents diphtheria.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43Their situation in New York was most difficult.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47They lost a daughter, which, you know, must have been hard,
0:10:47 > 0:10:49before she was even one year old.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53Secondly, they didn't have, really, jobs.
0:10:53 > 0:10:59Alice speaks of Enriquez complaining of having to go get,
0:10:59 > 0:11:03you know, simple jobs doing graphic design and things like that.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06They had a rivalry, an artistic rivalry, you know,
0:11:06 > 0:11:12going on, that at some point I think all of that together
0:11:12 > 0:11:14became an explosive situation.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20- Those pigeons are always going by and...- They won't come in.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23Where do you think they're going to... You just don't like it?
0:11:23 > 0:11:26SHE COOS
0:11:29 > 0:11:32I don't think they'll like this as much as health-store
0:11:32 > 0:11:37whole-wheat bread. But still, it's all right, don't you think?
0:11:37 > 0:11:41- They look interested.- Oh, they are. They always come for breakfast.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46There's one bronze one. Oh, isn't he beautiful, see? That one.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50- See, there's three...six... nine...ten.- Oh, that's brilliant.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52Isn't that beautiful?
0:11:53 > 0:11:57Oh, I love that. You can get up even closer. Go ahead.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01Because then they'll be larger. Poor things, you see...
0:12:01 > 0:12:05Look at their struggle. We should have made them smaller.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09When I would give a slide lecture, I would have to apologise
0:12:09 > 0:12:13for being psychological, because that was considered a weakness.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18For instance, the New Realists, they would take a room, a table,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20a chair and a person
0:12:20 > 0:12:22and they were all just the same,
0:12:22 > 0:12:24and they would paint them all just the same.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28Now, I'll admit that compositionally they are the same
0:12:28 > 0:12:30but actually they're different.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Human beings are different from furniture.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37You know? Furniture doesn't have blood, it doesn't have expression.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40And I think that the value of psychology is shown today
0:12:40 > 0:12:45because the world we live in is almost purely psychological.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Alice's paintings are not paintings of humanity with a capital H
0:12:49 > 0:12:53broken down into individual units but rather paintings of
0:12:53 > 0:12:57individuals which, added up, give you an idea of what America looked
0:12:57 > 0:13:00like at this time, what the range of personalities was, and so on.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04She's not trying to get at an essence of humanity.
0:13:04 > 0:13:08She's trying to get at a specific of that person, right?
0:13:08 > 0:13:09She doesn't paint a Fuller brush man
0:13:09 > 0:13:12in order to say that she painted a Fuller brush man.
0:13:12 > 0:13:14She doesn't paint a Fuller brush man as the representative of
0:13:14 > 0:13:17a kind of a Willy Loman personality or whatever it is.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20I mean, she begins with that guy, you know?
0:13:20 > 0:13:22The fact that that is what he is,
0:13:22 > 0:13:24the fact that the eagerness of his face
0:13:24 > 0:13:25is the eagerness of the salesman,
0:13:25 > 0:13:29that all is part of it, but... it's not the reason for it.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34I think certainly Alice Neel believed that there was some sort
0:13:34 > 0:13:39of individual reality that she could discover and portray in her works.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52No, it's not... It doesn't have to be anything specific, Dad, I was just...
0:13:52 > 0:13:55- Yeah, right. I can just relax. - You can just relax.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58I can even lie down here,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01like being in a psychiatrist's office or something.
0:14:01 > 0:14:04Look, like, you went off and became a doctor.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06- Richard went off and became a lawyer...- Yeah.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09Like, what is it about your upbringing that made you two
0:14:09 > 0:14:11do what you did?
0:14:11 > 0:14:14- Well, you have to remember... - I mean, look, in many ways,
0:14:14 > 0:14:17you talk about the bourgeois this and the bourgeois that.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20You have completely...uh...
0:14:20 > 0:14:22bought into that, on some level.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24So then most of them... I mean, she really got by...
0:14:24 > 0:14:26I mean, did she get by, like...
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Where did the majority of the money come from?
0:14:28 > 0:14:31- I mean, I just don't... - Why are we fixating on this now?
0:14:31 > 0:14:34- Oh.- I mean, you know... - Oh, actually, I didn't... I don't...
0:14:34 > 0:14:37No, I mean, I told you where it came from.
0:14:37 > 0:14:39Is this on or off?
0:14:39 > 0:14:40Well, do you want me to turn it off?
0:14:40 > 0:14:41You know?
0:14:41 > 0:14:43Let's be honest. I mean, she had to... I mean...
0:14:43 > 0:14:46Yeah, it just depends how you want to slant this thing.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48No, but I don't want to slant it any way.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50- I'm not looking to slant anything. - Yeah.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54I'm just saying that, like, if you want to do something,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57if you want that badly to do something...
0:14:57 > 0:15:00- You have to make a sacrifice. - Yeah, and that means...
0:15:00 > 0:15:02See, can you imagine what it's like...
0:15:03 > 0:15:06..to not really have predictability in your life to that level?
0:15:06 > 0:15:08I mean...
0:15:08 > 0:15:09- No, I can't.- No. Well...
0:15:11 > 0:15:14But, you know, she had nothing. She had no...
0:15:14 > 0:15:18She was on relief. Er... The kids were born on relief.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20I know that...
0:15:20 > 0:15:22that...
0:15:22 > 0:15:27what's-his-name doesn't want to admit that, but he was, and raised,
0:15:27 > 0:15:32and the money that she got from relief wasn't enough to live on.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35- What is relief? I don't even know... - Oh, my God. Welfare.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37She got very little money from her art.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41In fact, I think, her art was a liability, because she had to buy...
0:15:41 > 0:15:43she had to buy canvas.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45She had to buy stretcher pieces.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49She had to buy oil paints, and that doesn't come cheap.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53Did you... I mean, you divorced or what?
0:15:53 > 0:15:56No. I thought that was bourgeois, you know?
0:15:56 > 0:15:59- So you just...- Even though it was a wealthy family and all that,
0:15:59 > 0:16:04I wouldn't have participated in such bourgeois activity such as divorce.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07- As divorce, no.- I was against everything in those days!
0:16:09 > 0:16:13They have a child who died, they had a second child,
0:16:13 > 0:16:18Isabetta, and then Carlos Enriquez took the child to Cuba temporarily
0:16:18 > 0:16:20for the family to see,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24to actually collect money from his wealthy family
0:16:24 > 0:16:27in order so that both of them could go to Paris.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29It was a time of the Depression.
0:16:29 > 0:16:34The family didn't want to give money for both of them to travel to Europe
0:16:34 > 0:16:39and he never returned to New York and never returned the daughter.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43She felt that the kid would be better off by staying with
0:16:43 > 0:16:45his wealthy family...
0:16:46 > 0:16:47...which is...sad,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50but maybe it was her way of raising it up.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54I realised that was just the end of everything.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58I was left with the apartment, the furniture, a whole life,
0:16:58 > 0:17:00and it was finished.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02Because he was very weak and...
0:17:02 > 0:17:04Did you feel abandoned?
0:17:04 > 0:17:07I was abandoned. I didn't feel it. I was.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Did you feel abandoned that you had lost your child, too?
0:17:10 > 0:17:12- Everything.- Yeah.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18She couldn't deal with it, with the whole complexity of it
0:17:18 > 0:17:20and the emotional strain, you know,
0:17:20 > 0:17:22having this little girl that she loved...
0:17:24 > 0:17:27..and yet in some way had to abandon, you know?
0:17:30 > 0:17:32It was just too much for her.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34You know, she...she couldn't...
0:17:34 > 0:17:38she couldn't deal with it all, and she...
0:17:40 > 0:17:41..tried to commit suicide.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50When you look at the number of mother-and-children pictures
0:17:50 > 0:17:55that she did around 1930, they are all to some extent,
0:17:55 > 0:17:57I think, self-portrayals.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05When you've lost a child through death and you've lost another child
0:18:05 > 0:18:08because it's been removed from your care because you're
0:18:08 > 0:18:12manifestly not capable of looking after it, you probably do have
0:18:12 > 0:18:15a feeling of yourself as being degenerate in some way,
0:18:15 > 0:18:20er, incapable, erm...dirty even,
0:18:20 > 0:18:21erm...
0:18:21 > 0:18:27and I think those kinds of feelings come out in those paintings.
0:18:27 > 0:18:29That in a way it was my own fault.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33I pushed my brain back,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36and then after it got back there,
0:18:36 > 0:18:38I was much worse off.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41I forgot all the Spanish I knew. I couldn't read.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43I couldn't do anything.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46When she was in the hospital,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49she must have had to have done
0:18:49 > 0:18:51quite a lot of work on herself, psychologically,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53and I think the specialists said,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56"Look in the mirror, look at yourself in the mirror
0:18:56 > 0:19:01"and realise who you are," and I think that was probably a pretty
0:19:01 > 0:19:04critical moment for her,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08when she realised that actually by looking
0:19:08 > 0:19:13at herself...and examining herself...
0:19:13 > 0:19:17she could give herself a chance.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27So what is my tech...
0:19:27 > 0:19:29I guess, what is my relation to you?
0:19:29 > 0:19:31- You're my cousin.- Right.
0:19:31 > 0:19:37Because your father and my mother were half-sister, half-brother.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41So, we are the offspring of those two,
0:19:41 > 0:19:46which...puts us at the same level, so we're cousins.
0:19:46 > 0:19:47We're cousins.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51As far as I knew she was...
0:19:51 > 0:19:54she did...she was... she had died a long time ago.
0:19:54 > 0:19:56- Who had died a long time ago? - Alice.- OK.
0:19:56 > 0:19:58In other words, there was no... there was...
0:19:58 > 0:20:01I didn't have a grandmother from that side of the family.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03Let's put it that way.
0:20:06 > 0:20:11This picture was from 1976.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21Isabetta was a tiny little girl,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24I guess, about two years or something like that.
0:20:24 > 0:20:26She was left behind and she never...
0:20:27 > 0:20:31..she never was... came to grips with that. She was...
0:20:33 > 0:20:35In a sense, she was...
0:20:35 > 0:20:38She didn't...care for her mother, if you know what I mean.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40She was hurt, really hurt.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43- Have you ever seen the painting of Isabetta?- Yeah.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46- What do you think of that? - The one she's naked?- Yeah.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49Erm...I liked it.
0:20:49 > 0:20:50I don't... I don't feel...
0:20:50 > 0:20:55I didn't feel... offended or, you know...
0:20:55 > 0:20:58It's a little bit strange, no question about it.
0:20:58 > 0:20:59I think it's disgusting.
0:20:59 > 0:21:05I mean, I'm conservative but I'm not, you know, fuddy-duddy
0:21:05 > 0:21:10and I would never have my children...naked like that
0:21:10 > 0:21:13standing for a photograph or a painting.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16I... I just don't think it's correct.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19All that genitalia, you know?
0:21:19 > 0:21:22It... And it was very pronounced in that picture and it was...
0:21:22 > 0:21:24I... I think it's ugly.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34- Come stand here a few minutes. - Again?!
0:21:34 > 0:21:35Yes, again.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44What did they say? You're not a block of ice?
0:21:44 > 0:21:47Yeah, I'm not a block of ice. I'm a human.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49LAUGHTER
0:21:51 > 0:21:52- Alice!- What?
0:21:53 > 0:21:55- Can I show you something?- What?
0:21:56 > 0:21:59I don't like that hand.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02All right, I'll take it out.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04HE SINGS
0:22:04 > 0:22:06Why don't you go back over there and do that?
0:22:06 > 0:22:09Go to the other side of the painting, but don't hit it.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27- NEWSREEL:- 5,000 banks shut their doors to depositors
0:22:27 > 0:22:30now in greatest need of their savings.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32Many would never...
0:22:32 > 0:22:34It was tough. It was very tough.
0:22:34 > 0:22:39It was tough, not only the situation itself
0:22:39 > 0:22:44but the times did not, er, encourage you.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47- NEWSREEL:- This is no unsolvable problem
0:22:47 > 0:22:50if we face it wisely and courageously.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52It can be accomplished in part
0:22:52 > 0:22:56by direct recruiting by the Government itself.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58I pledge myself...
0:22:59 > 0:23:03..to a New Deal for the American people.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07All over the nation, Works Progress Administrators are hurrying
0:23:07 > 0:23:11to transfer millions of idle from relief rolls to work payrolls.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14138 Greene Street, New York, tomorrow morning, nine o'clock.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17The Works Progress Administration was launched
0:23:17 > 0:23:21late in 1935 as the key agency in the federal work programme to
0:23:21 > 0:23:23employ able people from relief rolls.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Painters too contribute their bit to making the Works Program
0:23:26 > 0:23:28a real and permanent accomplishment.
0:23:28 > 0:23:35The WPA was a life-saver in terms of keeping me alive,
0:23:35 > 0:23:40so I could continue to literally stay alive and paint.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45To participate in the WPA and to see what was going on around you
0:23:45 > 0:23:48made you more aware of reality.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50I had not done street scenes before,
0:23:50 > 0:23:55but on the WPA I did any number of neighbourhoods and street scenes
0:23:55 > 0:23:57where, besides showing the street and the neighbourhood
0:23:57 > 0:24:01and everything else, I showed the condition of the people.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05A great deal of the...of the culture of our times,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08a great deal of the colour of our times
0:24:08 > 0:24:10was formed then in that decade.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14And was made by paupers, people that were on relief.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24After the Cuban marriage blew up, I lived with this man who was
0:24:24 > 0:24:27a sailor, and also he was an early dope fiend.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30This chap smoked opium in my apartment.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33I didn't dare, I had just had a nervous breakdown.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36I wouldn't have smoked any drug of any sort.
0:24:36 > 0:24:38See, but opium shouldn't make you very creative.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40- Oh, it made him wonderful. - Opium usually makes you calm.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43Yeah, I don't know why he took... Maybe he took...
0:24:43 > 0:24:45He used to take snow, he used to take everything.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49I have never seen a person so concerned about his own
0:24:49 > 0:24:51sensations, you know.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56He thought, living with someone, you owned them.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00So he cut up about 60 of my paintings and burned up about 30.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04- You're kidding. Oh, this was one you your...- Boyfriends.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07- One of your boyfriends.- Yes. - And he got...he got angry?
0:25:07 > 0:25:10- He got angry, yes.- Oh, that's a shame, OK. And this gentleman?
0:25:10 > 0:25:13Oh, yes, in fact he got angry because
0:25:13 > 0:25:16this gentleman was sending me flowers.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18LAUGHTER
0:25:21 > 0:25:24John lived at Gramercy Park, a very swank apartment.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28And I used to work at West 17th Street all day,
0:25:28 > 0:25:33paintings like longshoremen coming home from work
0:25:33 > 0:25:35and the Magistrates' Court.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40But I'd go for dinner so I'd have my upper-class evening.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43- He had just left his wife.- Uh-huh.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47- And a couple of children... - This was in 1935?
0:25:47 > 0:25:49Yes.
0:25:49 > 0:25:54John was providing very material support
0:25:54 > 0:25:59at a time when Alice still
0:25:59 > 0:26:05had virtually no income from her paintings.
0:26:05 > 0:26:11And I think she enjoyed, and came to expect,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16getting a good meal periodically.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30At the end of '30s, she moved out of Greenwich Village,
0:26:30 > 0:26:33and she moved up to Spanish Harlem.
0:26:33 > 0:26:39And I think, there, she was, to a certain extent,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42committing artistic suicide.
0:26:42 > 0:26:47She was saying goodbye to the scene
0:26:47 > 0:26:50and isolating herself.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53She said she moved there because she was after the truth,
0:26:53 > 0:26:56she wanted to paint what she would call "real people",
0:26:56 > 0:26:58the people on the streets,
0:26:58 > 0:27:03not the sort of literati and the glitterati and the artists
0:27:03 > 0:27:08but, you know, the Puerto Ricans or the immigrants or whatever,
0:27:08 > 0:27:10the people who were having a hard life.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27Now, this was done before I was born.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30This was done in the '30s, like '36 or '37.
0:27:31 > 0:27:32And who is it?
0:27:32 > 0:27:34It's Jose, my father.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43In 1936, she met my father, Jose.
0:27:44 > 0:27:46It's funny, you know,
0:27:46 > 0:27:50she WAS down in the Village, she WAS part of the scene,
0:27:50 > 0:27:54and she sort of opted to get out of that scene
0:27:54 > 0:28:00and to set up another relationship and to have children.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04- Toward Jose I made my one aggressive action.- Uh-huh.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07I went down there one night...
0:28:09 > 0:28:12..to that night club and I knew Jose
0:28:12 > 0:28:15was going to want to come home with me.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18And that was the most aggressive thing I ever did.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21- You went down by yourself? - I went down by myself, yes.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24- And Jose did come home with you? - He did come home with me, yes.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27- You were 35... - I'm 35 and he was 25, yeah.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30- So I think that.... - But I wasn't thinking about years.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33No, I know, but I think that that...
0:28:33 > 0:28:35You know, I think it shows a kind of pizzazz
0:28:35 > 0:28:38- when you take up with a man who's younger than you.- Do you?
0:28:38 > 0:28:41Oh, yes, it's very dashing.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44Hartley and I have different fathers.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48Jose left when I was about three or four months old.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53She met Sam, and they got together and,
0:28:53 > 0:28:56you know, Hartley was born in September.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02This is a man I met, very brilliant but crazy.
0:29:02 > 0:29:04This is him after I knew him better.
0:29:07 > 0:29:12I've always felt that the most important element
0:29:12 > 0:29:14in motion pictures,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17the most important and the most effective
0:29:17 > 0:29:22and the most influencing power of film is in documentary.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26There's always been a sense of him as some sort of mystery man,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29who hovered at the side, at the edge of things,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32and no-one, you know, could quite find out
0:29:32 > 0:29:37who he was or what his real role in Alice's life was.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40They said a lot of nasty things to each other,
0:29:40 > 0:29:43and Alice gave as good as she got
0:29:43 > 0:29:46and, in fact, much of their encounters were, you know,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50if you felt like there was a winner to be declared, she won.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53How do you feel about your grandfather?
0:29:53 > 0:29:56I mean, when you come across references like that,
0:29:56 > 0:30:00they're usually unflattering and they picture him as being
0:30:00 > 0:30:05unrestrained and very...even violent.
0:30:05 > 0:30:07Although he didn't...
0:30:07 > 0:30:09at least in his expressions he was.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13I don't know. I think that he...
0:30:13 > 0:30:15I mean, as...
0:30:15 > 0:30:19I suppose I respect him as an intellectual, I guess. But...
0:30:19 > 0:30:21He was. A powerful one.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23Believe me.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26He discriminated against Richard in many ways.
0:30:26 > 0:30:32But Richard and I stuck together very much, but...
0:30:32 > 0:30:35at times it was...
0:30:35 > 0:30:39The situation was just awful, is all I can say.
0:30:41 > 0:30:43One of the things that you said in your...
0:30:43 > 0:30:46the things that you gave me is about this abuse.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49- And so, I'm going to put it like this. Sam, he abused Richard.- Yes.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52OK. And then what else do you want to say?
0:30:52 > 0:30:55Just say Sam's attitude toward Hartley was entirely different
0:30:55 > 0:30:59and this created a very difficult situation.
0:30:59 > 0:31:00- That's all.- OK. Good.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03- And that's it.- OK, that's enough.
0:31:04 > 0:31:06It's very hard for me to comment on
0:31:06 > 0:31:10what impact having children had on Alice Neel.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13Now, when I say children, I mean Hartley and Richard,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16because, of course, Isabetta was not in her care.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Obviously, being a single parent
0:31:19 > 0:31:23meant that she was going to have to devote more time to her children
0:31:23 > 0:31:26than she might have had to if she hadn't been a single parent.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30Our room was transition between two rooms,
0:31:30 > 0:31:33so people would come in at a certain place, have to pass through our room
0:31:33 > 0:31:36to get to the main living room and the studio.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40So even if they came at ten o'clock at night, we would be in bed,
0:31:40 > 0:31:44they would go through the room, and we were used to this.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46There were people who read to us.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48There were people who told us stories.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52As a child, you appreciate it as your world.
0:31:52 > 0:31:57Meanwhile, she had her world in the other room, right next door.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00Those two kids grew up in an environment
0:32:00 > 0:32:03which was rich intellectually.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06But also they met so many blasted lives,
0:32:06 > 0:32:11so many complicated lives that they were terrified of living that way.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14How did you find a way to support yourself since...?
0:32:14 > 0:32:19Well, everybody has that problem. I mean, every artist has that problem.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23First, you have to be able to live, and then you have to paint,
0:32:23 > 0:32:27but you do that any way you can. You give classes and somehow...
0:32:27 > 0:32:31And then also, I had acquired the idea that for art's sake,
0:32:31 > 0:32:34you had to give up everything.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37If I had some money, I wouldn't buy a dress or anything,
0:32:37 > 0:32:40I'd buy canvas and paint materials.
0:32:40 > 0:32:45A lot of people want distinction without risk.
0:32:45 > 0:32:49They want to be known for themselves without knowing themselves.
0:32:49 > 0:32:51They want to stand out in crowds
0:32:51 > 0:32:54but not far enough to actually be isolated.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56She was the kind of person who, I think,
0:32:56 > 0:33:00must have been isolated from very early on in her experience of life
0:33:00 > 0:33:03and got used to it, and learned how to stylize it,
0:33:03 > 0:33:07and learned how to play it, and learned how to use it as a medium.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10Distinction was a medium for her, I think,
0:33:10 > 0:33:14as much as a thing to achieve.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16If she had been satisfied with
0:33:16 > 0:33:22the paragon of what women were supposed to be in her era,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25she would have accomplished nothing.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28OK? Nothing.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32She might have been the greatest mother and housewife and all that.
0:33:32 > 0:33:38This was the other side of the coin in terms of the way Alice saw it.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41She didn't want any of it. She didn't want that stuff.
0:33:41 > 0:33:43She wasn't interested in it.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46She didn't even know what it was, in some way.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49It's a privilege to paint and it takes up a lot of time
0:33:49 > 0:33:53and it means there's a lot of things you don't do.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56But still, with me, painting was more than a profession -
0:33:56 > 0:34:00it was also an obsession. I had to paint, you know.
0:34:02 > 0:34:08If you were out of the mix, if you were somehow
0:34:08 > 0:34:12not part of a coterie of artists
0:34:12 > 0:34:15who were all talking about each other,
0:34:15 > 0:34:17who talked to the gallerists,
0:34:17 > 0:34:21who like to know who's doing what and what's interesting,
0:34:21 > 0:34:23if you're out of all that,
0:34:23 > 0:34:26then there's no word on the street about what you're doing.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29And that can be very problematic.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32During the past 50 years,
0:34:32 > 0:34:36all the arts have had to accept the triumph of the machine.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Traditional forms of painting and sculpture
0:34:39 > 0:34:42have no function in our streamlined existence.
0:34:43 > 0:34:45If they are to find a place
0:34:45 > 0:34:48in the civilisation of the next half-century,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52the visual arts must effect a compromise with the machine.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57This can be done only within the terms of what we call abstract art.
0:34:58 > 0:35:03There are times in postwar art history
0:35:03 > 0:35:09when one thing seems so much to define the moment
0:35:09 > 0:35:14that it drowns out every other kind of activity.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17One of the things about the period
0:35:17 > 0:35:20when abstract expressionism dominated
0:35:20 > 0:35:24was that it dominated so thoroughly.
0:35:24 > 0:35:26Well, I mean, those artists who felt that
0:35:26 > 0:35:30they should do what painting can do rather than what photography can do
0:35:30 > 0:35:35went towards an abstract mode, you know.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38And certainly at mid-century with someone like Clement Greenberg,
0:35:38 > 0:35:41he wanted painting to do what painting could do
0:35:41 > 0:35:43and not try to be like photography
0:35:43 > 0:35:46or not try to be like a short story.
0:35:46 > 0:35:47It should be pure.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51Even Picasso said he doesn't believe in pure abstraction.
0:35:51 > 0:35:55There is no such thing. Everything comes from reality.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58The human brain is incapable
0:35:58 > 0:36:01of inventing something it never has seen -
0:36:01 > 0:36:03that is, these shapes.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06They can be combined in such a way that you don't know
0:36:06 > 0:36:09what the hell they are, but somewhere they have been seen.
0:36:09 > 0:36:14The brain itself, without having seen the thing, cannot invent it.
0:36:14 > 0:36:19I lived in Spanish Harlem and I just worked as I always had worked.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22I taught some private classes,
0:36:22 > 0:36:28and my main thing always was to paint pictures, like it always was.
0:36:28 > 0:36:33Here she was, engaged with a certain kind of realism,
0:36:33 > 0:36:40which would have seemed to the people who were the power brokers,
0:36:40 > 0:36:42the people running the magazines,
0:36:42 > 0:36:45the people running certain galleries...
0:36:45 > 0:36:49To them, Alice Neel would have seemed
0:36:49 > 0:36:52just not it, just not...engaged.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55A lot of the time that Alice Neel was painting,
0:36:55 > 0:36:59she was painting figuratively, and so was De Kooning, for example.
0:36:59 > 0:37:04She actually was not outside of the mainstream of American painting
0:37:04 > 0:37:07for a lot of the time in which she was working.
0:37:07 > 0:37:09It's just at that moment in the '50s
0:37:09 > 0:37:12where there's a dominance of abstraction,
0:37:12 > 0:37:14a kind of hegemony of abstraction,
0:37:14 > 0:37:17that then her work
0:37:17 > 0:37:19appears to be completely outside the mainstream.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22And I think people who were figurative painters in that time
0:37:22 > 0:37:24felt tremendously excluded.
0:37:24 > 0:37:29It was like you're broadcasting and nobody is picking up the signal.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32It was really life or death for a lot of people.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34I mean, they really saw it...
0:37:34 > 0:37:36in moral terms,
0:37:36 > 0:37:39you were closer to God if you worked certain ways.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44And, conversely, you were closer to the devil if you worked other ways.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46I hate to use the word portrait
0:37:46 > 0:37:51because, for so many years, the portrait was so despised.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53In fact, it still is.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57Abstract expressionism is still more acceptable
0:37:57 > 0:37:59than anything that resembles anyone.
0:38:00 > 0:38:05However she was neglected, however she was scorned
0:38:05 > 0:38:07and however she was even mocked,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10there was one person in her life who did not, who valued her work
0:38:10 > 0:38:15with total sincerity, and that was Sam Brody.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19He totally believed that she was a great artist when nobody else did,
0:38:19 > 0:38:23and told her so, and convinced her that she was.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27And she was grateful to him for that
0:38:27 > 0:38:30and she forgave him everything, I think, for that reason.
0:38:30 > 0:38:32He used to kick me under the table.
0:38:32 > 0:38:34All the time, he'd kick me under the table.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37And, one time, I screwed up enough courage to say,
0:38:37 > 0:38:39"Stop kicking me under the table."
0:38:39 > 0:38:43Well, she had to go out that evening, and he beat me up.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47He really did. I mean, that probably was one of the worst incidents.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50It was intermittent, but it was physical violence, and it would...
0:38:50 > 0:38:53could be directed at Alice and it certainly was directed at me.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57Out of the chaos of the emotional situation,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01Alice, somehow, you know,
0:39:01 > 0:39:06teased out some higher reality for herself.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09And I don't know how to say it exactly.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13She got energy from the emotional stress
0:39:13 > 0:39:17and intellectual, um, jousting
0:39:17 > 0:39:21that went on in these interactions.
0:39:21 > 0:39:23She just wanted to know
0:39:23 > 0:39:26not what people presented themselves as being
0:39:26 > 0:39:29but what was actually their inner lives.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31And that was one of the ways she did it.
0:39:31 > 0:39:36She wanted to know what you were like when you were very angry,
0:39:36 > 0:39:41when you were mad, when you were whatever - off-guard.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44And she would do it. She was capable of it.
0:39:44 > 0:39:45I never liked that about her.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48The fact is she tolerated this person
0:39:48 > 0:39:52that she knew was abusing me for years and years.
0:39:52 > 0:39:57I mean, I didn't hold that against her, but the facts are the facts.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00I mean, the world isn't just you,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03the world is you and your relationship with the other people,
0:40:03 > 0:40:05and you have to deal with your situation.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07And other people have to deal with theirs.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11You didn't know anything of him
0:40:11 > 0:40:14because I never chose to talk about him.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19I saw no reason to bring him into my life.
0:40:19 > 0:40:21You know, one has to declare one's loyalty.
0:40:21 > 0:40:23And...
0:40:24 > 0:40:28..my loyalty was definitely with Alice,
0:40:28 > 0:40:30who was the one who...
0:40:31 > 0:40:36..who we could depend on, who really loved us in an unqualified way.
0:40:36 > 0:40:38And...
0:40:38 > 0:40:41so I really rejected...
0:40:46 > 0:40:50..rejected, er...
0:40:50 > 0:40:55totally rejected, I would say, Sam.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07You're happy. You look happy.
0:41:07 > 0:41:10Oh, I look happy, but that's just a fake.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12I'm serving a sentence.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14Yeah.
0:41:14 > 0:41:18Instead of jumping out the window, I'm putting in the time.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22Yeah. But your face looks like you...
0:41:22 > 0:41:23Always.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26Some woman solved the whole problem
0:41:26 > 0:41:30when she said I was Dr Jekyll and Mrs Hyde.
0:41:30 > 0:41:35Because I have always done morbid pictures, a lot of them.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38But I, myself, am always smiling, but that's just a face.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41All other faces are part of it, too, I guess.
0:41:41 > 0:41:43I don't know. I don't care.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48In the '50s, all the men took their wives out to the suburbs
0:41:48 > 0:41:51and the women conformed more.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55There is a tendency in the human race to make everybody alike.
0:41:55 > 0:41:59The whole thing is to homogenize the world.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02I saw the world as difficult.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06I saw the pressures as terrific
0:42:06 > 0:42:09because the pressure to be normal.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12Besides everything else that you have to do,
0:42:12 > 0:42:15they invented these frightful shirts that had to be laundered,
0:42:15 > 0:42:18and buttoned, and you're even supposed to put on a tie.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22But all those things were very difficult for me,
0:42:22 > 0:42:24to keep up with your clothing,
0:42:24 > 0:42:29to keep up with all the things in regular life, make you absurd.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38Staring at an individual that is looking at them fully frontal,
0:42:38 > 0:42:42eyes wide open and gauging them visually
0:42:42 > 0:42:44is very intimate and very demanding.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46We do not ordinarily
0:42:46 > 0:42:48engage at length
0:42:48 > 0:42:51individuals face-to-face
0:42:51 > 0:42:54who look at us as we look at them.
0:42:54 > 0:42:55We tend to look away.
0:42:55 > 0:42:57I think some people may be embarrassed
0:42:57 > 0:42:59to look at pictures like that but the fact is
0:42:59 > 0:43:02that she was not embarrassed to look or paint in that manner.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05So, the space between her understanding
0:43:05 > 0:43:06and the viewer's understanding
0:43:06 > 0:43:10is the space that the painting essentially
0:43:10 > 0:43:12invites the viewer to cross.
0:43:18 > 0:43:22I'd go so out of myself and into them
0:43:22 > 0:43:25that, after they leave, I sometimes feel horrible.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30I feel like an untended house.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33I feel so...
0:43:33 > 0:43:37I have been living in them for two hours,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40so to go back to myself is sometimes difficult.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45She had to deal with disappointment,
0:43:45 > 0:43:48sometimes on a daily basis,
0:43:48 > 0:43:51in terms of where her art was,
0:43:51 > 0:43:54where she was going, what it meant.
0:43:54 > 0:44:02I can remember her denigrating herself in front of people,
0:44:02 > 0:44:05because she wasn't so secure in her own mind about things.
0:44:05 > 0:44:10At the very end of the '50s, I think that that was the really low period.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12She wanted to be noticed.
0:44:12 > 0:44:14A famous artist is not anything
0:44:14 > 0:44:17unless people are looking at their work.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20She lived her whole life producing paintings
0:44:20 > 0:44:24that got only the scantest kind of notice.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27Whatever invitation she got
0:44:27 > 0:44:35to go and make a showing, she went.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37Universities would ask her to come
0:44:37 > 0:44:42and she would always do it for a very small honorarium,
0:44:42 > 0:44:44or just her fare.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48She would take her slides and show them
0:44:48 > 0:44:53and lecture along with it, and she became very popular.
0:44:53 > 0:44:55Listen. My son won't see this film, will he?
0:44:55 > 0:44:58No, he probably won't. I mean, you know...don't...
0:44:58 > 0:45:03- They're so...- We make...- They're so anxious to be respectable.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06Well, they have a very respectable mother. They should be happy.
0:45:06 > 0:45:08- Well, I am. Wouldn't you say I'm respectable?- I mean, yes.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12They got kicked out of college. They were gone.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14They were done for.
0:45:15 > 0:45:17And I think they were aware of that.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22During the Columbia University riots - remember in the '60s?
0:45:22 > 0:45:26- Uh-huh.- Both stayed out of them. They were opposed to all that.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28They kept their skirts clean.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34And I said, "Well, you will make it, boys.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37"You'll certainly make it."
0:45:38 > 0:45:44To her, our ability to swim in the deep waters
0:45:44 > 0:45:50of American society and professional life, and so forth,
0:45:50 > 0:45:54was something that she wanted us to be able to do.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58And she arranged one way or another
0:45:58 > 0:46:02for these tremendous educational opportunities we had.
0:46:02 > 0:46:04Alice didn't...
0:46:04 > 0:46:09She was proud of us because we achieved what we wanted to achieve.
0:46:09 > 0:46:11"What do you want to do?" "Well, I want to do this."
0:46:11 > 0:46:14"I want to do that." "OK, I'll help you do it, whatever it takes."
0:46:23 > 0:46:28If you're a professional, you live the life of a professional.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31You're expected to represent something.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35In many ways, it is a controlled world.
0:46:36 > 0:46:42It's certainly a safe haven compared to the life of an artist.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48Why do you think it is...
0:46:48 > 0:46:49- All right. Fine.- No, go ahead.
0:46:49 > 0:46:51- What do you want? - No, go ahead, roll it, roll it.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54- Look, I mean...- Yeah, go ahead. Don't be so fucking sensitive.
0:46:54 > 0:46:56Hey, fuck you.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58Fuck you, too.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02And the horse you rode in on.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04That's you.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09BOTH LAUGH
0:47:11 > 0:47:12All right.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15So, you got to just relax about it to a certain extent.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17Look. Look. Look at that. Look at that.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19That's a flying turkey.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21It's going after another bird.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23Yeah, yeah. It went after a small bird.
0:47:23 > 0:47:25Did you see that?
0:47:25 > 0:47:28Look at it. Holy shit, it's running now.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33Is that a raptor-looking thing? Look.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39Oh, its babies! Here come its babies, Andrew! That's why. Look.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42There are its little babies, look. Oh, my...
0:47:42 > 0:47:46They're tiny. Look at the size of them. Here, binoculars all around.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51Holy shit! Did you see?
0:47:51 > 0:47:53It was defending its young.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56I've never seen that before in my life.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03Where...? Oh, look at the little things, Andrew.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06Do you know how many there are? Hold it. Stop, don't move.
0:48:08 > 0:48:13Simone de Beauvoir, in her novel Second Sex, she says,
0:48:13 > 0:48:19"I never felt I inherited the world, because it was male-dominated."
0:48:19 > 0:48:23Well, then what DID she inherit? You inherit the world.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Somehow, you find a place for yourself.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29We all converged in Washington to go to this conference
0:48:29 > 0:48:33and it was a panel, and Alice Neel was one of the people on the panel.
0:48:33 > 0:48:37She sort of grabbed the mic and grabbed the podium
0:48:37 > 0:48:41and pulled out about 40 carousels of slides and started showing them.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43And she wouldn't stop. And we kept saying, "OK, Alice.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45"It's time for you to get off.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48"We got a programme to finish up here." No, she wouldn't stop.
0:48:48 > 0:48:49She kept going and kept going and kept going.
0:48:49 > 0:48:52People were just amazed. She'd never had that kind of...
0:48:52 > 0:48:55She was hungry for attention, she was getting it,
0:48:55 > 0:48:57and people were giving her attention, so she kept going.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59And, obviously, the ladies' room had a lot of business
0:48:59 > 0:49:03since mostly women were there. And she got tired of waiting,
0:49:03 > 0:49:05and so, she simply pulled up her skirt and peed.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08Now, that was a gesture not without its irony.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11She wasn't just doing this to relieve herself.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14Jackson Pollock was famous for having peed in a fireplace.
0:49:14 > 0:49:20So Alice was making sort of a performance statement about herself.
0:49:20 > 0:49:27Her outrageous gestures gave women permission to claim space,
0:49:27 > 0:49:31to claim psychic space, physical space, world space
0:49:31 > 0:49:35to do things that were over the top in some way.
0:49:35 > 0:49:37And it's not that she directed anybody to do it,
0:49:37 > 0:49:42but she just gave an example of how you could operate.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44At any rate, can we get back...
0:49:44 > 0:49:46I would like to know how you... how would the art...
0:49:46 > 0:49:49You must take what I give you. Don't be too demanding.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52- I see.- Just sit there. - All right.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54What was I talking about?
0:49:54 > 0:49:57It was so clear to us, the people who went in and out,
0:49:57 > 0:50:02the art public, really believed the art world was a meritocracy.
0:50:02 > 0:50:04They believed whatever was shown at the museum
0:50:04 > 0:50:08got there because it deserved to be there.
0:50:08 > 0:50:12And if you weren't there, it meant that your work was not of any value.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16You know what, when I got alone in a room, I didn't care what I was.
0:50:16 > 0:50:18You see, like Judy Chicago,
0:50:18 > 0:50:21I never just paint my pussy - I think that's absurd.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24I mean, to do your pussy over and over - how monotonous.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31I never... And I don't think there was any difference... Finish that.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35..There's any difference between
0:50:35 > 0:50:37male art and female art.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39What was she like when you met her?
0:50:39 > 0:50:41What were your impressions of her...?
0:50:41 > 0:50:43Well, she seemed like an angry housewife.
0:50:43 > 0:50:46I mean, she would say very belligerent things
0:50:46 > 0:50:50and then people would yell at her, would say very nasty things to her.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53We got the vote in 1920.
0:50:53 > 0:50:59The year before, women's suffrage demonstrated in Washington.
0:50:59 > 0:51:01And you know that the men spat in their faces
0:51:01 > 0:51:04and burnt their bare arms with cigars.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07I don't think she saw herself in any way
0:51:07 > 0:51:10as a person who was part of a group.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14It wasn't just Alice. Joan Mitchell was exactly the same.
0:51:14 > 0:51:17Georgia O'Keeffe was famously resistant
0:51:17 > 0:51:21to being part of the feminist movement that arose in the 1970s.
0:51:21 > 0:51:25They came way before the feminist movement.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27They didn't really want to be seen as feminist,
0:51:27 > 0:51:32but they were held up as feminist models for the rest of us.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36I think the women's movement did a hell of a lot for her.
0:51:36 > 0:51:39I think this was true of a lot of women artists,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42that until the women's movement,
0:51:42 > 0:51:45they'd always had a little circle of admirers.
0:51:45 > 0:51:47But it took a movement.
0:51:49 > 0:51:56She has this ability to seize on a certain characteristic.
0:51:56 > 0:52:02And that characteristic both characterises the sitter
0:52:02 > 0:52:08but it also epitomises something about the age in which we live.
0:52:08 > 0:52:10And that's what she would try to seize on.
0:52:10 > 0:52:13I like it first to be art.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16So actually dividing up the canvas
0:52:16 > 0:52:19is one of the most exciting things for me.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22And then I like it not only to look like the person
0:52:22 > 0:52:24but to have their inner character as well.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30And then I like it to express the zeitgeist.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32You see, I don't like something in the '60s
0:52:32 > 0:52:36to look like something in the '70s, and they don't.
0:52:36 > 0:52:37It's amazing.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40Well, every decade changes like that.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43But, lucky for me, as old as I am, that I can still change
0:52:43 > 0:52:46because I've known people to get stuck back in their 30s or 40s
0:52:46 > 0:52:48and never get out of it,
0:52:48 > 0:52:51and just keep on doing the same thing over again.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59There's been an anti-humanist attitude that the human creature
0:52:59 > 0:53:00is unimportant.
0:53:02 > 0:53:05I read an introduction to some abstract chap's catalogue
0:53:05 > 0:53:09and he said, "With all our machines, with planes and everything else,
0:53:09 > 0:53:11"we've lost complete interest in man himself
0:53:11 > 0:53:13"and he has become, for us, unimportant."
0:53:13 > 0:53:15I, on the other hand,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18feel that no matter what invention they have, man is the catalyst.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21If there is a nuclear attack, man pushes the button.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24It's true science does the rest, but a man invented that.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27Man does everything. He's here in the world.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30I don't think he's made the best of it, but he's been given it.
0:53:32 > 0:53:37I like to paint people, you know, who are in the rat race,
0:53:37 > 0:53:41suffering all the tension and damage that's involved in that.
0:53:41 > 0:53:43Under pressure, really,
0:53:43 > 0:53:48of city life and of the awful struggle that goes on in the city.
0:54:14 > 0:54:18I didn't know what the '70s was about until I painted him,
0:54:18 > 0:54:22and then I realised that it was the time when the corporations
0:54:22 > 0:54:26enslaved all these bright, young men.
0:54:26 > 0:54:28He just looks used up, you know?
0:54:28 > 0:54:31He'd go to work early in the morning, and by the time
0:54:31 > 0:54:35he got home at night, he wouldn't have any energy left for anything.
0:54:35 > 0:54:36She's described this... I mean,
0:54:36 > 0:54:38she's has described it
0:54:38 > 0:54:40in publications, saying that
0:54:40 > 0:54:43it was like I was caught in a block of ice.
0:54:43 > 0:54:45I think those were her words.
0:54:45 > 0:54:47Whether I'm painting or not,
0:54:47 > 0:54:51I have this overweening interest in humanity.
0:54:51 > 0:54:55Even if I'm not working, I'm still analysing people.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57It's built in, sort of, you know?
0:54:57 > 0:55:01She used to say that her nerves were at the ends of her fingers...
0:55:01 > 0:55:04as she felt... they were raw and exposed.
0:55:04 > 0:55:09She could look into your life and talk to you,
0:55:09 > 0:55:13and get pretty close to what your devils are.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16And sometimes she'd just walk around and start crying,
0:55:16 > 0:55:18like, she's looking at some fish,
0:55:18 > 0:55:20and she starts crying,
0:55:20 > 0:55:23looking at the fish in...in a big...
0:55:23 > 0:55:26It was like a big aquarium, and it's, like, she felt like,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29you know, how everything is useless
0:55:29 > 0:55:31and the fish are in, like, a glass tank.
0:55:33 > 0:55:35They make me so sad.
0:55:35 > 0:55:37They do?
0:55:37 > 0:55:39No. You know what they give me?
0:55:39 > 0:55:41Come into the sun a little bit.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45They give me an intimation of life, you know?
0:55:47 > 0:55:49They do make you sad, don't they?
0:55:49 > 0:55:51And they are kind of like...
0:55:51 > 0:55:53Oh, they make me feel awful. Do you know what?
0:55:53 > 0:55:57They also make us all seem so frivolous.
0:56:01 > 0:56:03- Come on, Alice.- I don't know...
0:56:06 > 0:56:08You know, I'm not quite all there...
0:56:11 > 0:56:13Come on, we'll go.
0:56:13 > 0:56:15It may be her truth to start with,
0:56:15 > 0:56:18but after being subjected to some time,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21it could come close to being THE truth.
0:56:21 > 0:56:23It can become objectively the truth.
0:56:23 > 0:56:26Time doesn't...doesn't mark it.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29You react with immediate...
0:56:29 > 0:56:33immediately, as though it were alive, as though it were now.
0:56:59 > 0:57:05- TV:- 'We calculate margin rate using current fluctuating market rates
0:57:05 > 0:57:09'and we say to ourselves, "There's a margin rate in there..."'
0:57:09 > 0:57:14Is it ever strange to work and spend so much time in the house
0:57:14 > 0:57:16that your mother lived in?
0:57:16 > 0:57:19I like this place because, you know, it brings up memories.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22I've been working here for years,
0:57:22 > 0:57:25and, obviously, I watch the markets,
0:57:25 > 0:57:30and whatever I do in terms of investing.
0:57:30 > 0:57:34I was very much in favour of Richard Nixon.
0:57:34 > 0:57:38At one point, Alice said to me,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42"I don't want you ever to mention that man's name again.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46"You can mention it to anybody else but don't mention it to me."
0:57:46 > 0:57:48And I don't think I did.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51I think I stopped talking about Richard Nixon to Alice.
0:57:51 > 0:57:54I think it's natural, though, that if you're...
0:57:54 > 0:57:58If you go the opposite way from the way you were when you were young,
0:57:58 > 0:58:03you know, you maybe go too far on the end of the pendulum.
0:58:03 > 0:58:08But there are very few people that are as right-wing as I am.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11And they were very few people that were as left-wing as I was
0:58:11 > 0:58:13when I was a kid.
0:58:16 > 0:58:18When I'm here alone, I really get peculiar.
0:58:20 > 0:58:23I think it's wrong, in a way...
0:58:24 > 0:58:26What do you mean?
0:58:26 > 0:58:29Well, you know what they say,
0:58:29 > 0:58:32"Man was not made to live alone."
0:58:32 > 0:58:35- Uh-huh. - "It's better to marry than burn."
0:58:35 > 0:58:36SHE LAUGHS
0:58:36 > 0:58:39Hello, sweetie-kins.
0:58:39 > 0:58:41- Let's see...- They're getting on.
0:58:41 > 0:58:44Oh, yes, I think you're just great.
0:58:44 > 0:58:46She looks tired here.
0:58:46 > 0:58:51This was in 1979...
0:58:52 > 0:58:54..a passport shot.
0:58:59 > 0:59:01One time, when Alice came to speak
0:59:01 > 0:59:03about her paintings
0:59:03 > 0:59:05in Fort Lauderdale...
0:59:07 > 0:59:10..my mom went to the seminar, or to the lecture.
0:59:10 > 0:59:12And she sat right up front.
0:59:13 > 0:59:16And Alice spoke, and she asked questions,
0:59:16 > 0:59:18and she was interacting with the audience.
0:59:18 > 0:59:21My mother said nothing, she just sat up front.
0:59:21 > 0:59:23And she went to the reception afterwards,
0:59:23 > 0:59:24and Alice never recognised her.
0:59:24 > 0:59:27And my mother looked exactly like Alice.
0:59:29 > 0:59:32You know, she had... She'd had some problems in her life
0:59:32 > 0:59:35and I don't doubt that some of them were related to Alice.
0:59:35 > 0:59:39Some sort of mother-daughter acceptance thing.
0:59:39 > 0:59:41And she had attempted suicide, I think, twice,
0:59:41 > 0:59:43before she finally succeeded, so...
0:59:43 > 0:59:47She walked out of the house,
0:59:47 > 0:59:50went out to the sea wall...
0:59:50 > 0:59:52sat there and took the pills there,
0:59:52 > 0:59:55all by herself so as nobody could find her.
0:59:55 > 0:59:57And that was it.
0:59:57 > 0:59:58She took sleeping pills.
0:59:58 > 1:00:01She meant to do what she did. She meant to do what she did.
1:00:01 > 1:00:04She took her jewellery off, her big, honking jewellery.
1:00:04 > 1:00:06She left that for me.
1:00:06 > 1:00:10And she walked to the end of the point,
1:00:10 > 1:00:13I can show you where it is in Miami,
1:00:13 > 1:00:16and she just lay down on the sea wall.
1:00:16 > 1:00:18That was it.
1:00:19 > 1:00:21I was the last person that spoke to her.
1:00:21 > 1:00:24I mean, life is life. You know, you...
1:00:24 > 1:00:26I mean, that's the way it was.
1:00:26 > 1:00:31You know, I loved my mother and, you know, she had her reasons.
1:00:31 > 1:00:34Who am I to argue with that? Probably...
1:00:34 > 1:00:36She probably did the wrong thing.
1:00:36 > 1:00:39She probably should have somehow re-established her relationship
1:00:39 > 1:00:41with her mother, but that's not for me to judge.
1:00:55 > 1:00:58I had a one-person show at the Whitney.
1:00:58 > 1:01:00I had the whole second floor.
1:01:00 > 1:01:02I had 60 paintings, you know,
1:01:02 > 1:01:05but the man that put it on, Jack Baur,
1:01:05 > 1:01:10he wanted to give me credit for having preserved figures
1:01:10 > 1:01:12for five decades.
1:01:12 > 1:01:15I said, "You know, Mr Baur...
1:01:17 > 1:01:20"..it'd be great if Alice Neel could have a show here."
1:01:20 > 1:01:25I said, "I think she certainly deserves it."
1:01:25 > 1:01:28And he said, "Maybe we'll be able to do that in a few years."
1:01:28 > 1:01:30And I said, "Well, we...you know...
1:01:30 > 1:01:33"I don't know if we have a few more years.
1:01:33 > 1:01:37"I think we should go ahead and try to do it as soon as possible
1:01:37 > 1:01:41"because Alice isn't getting any younger."
1:01:41 > 1:01:45Of course, it was also the moment of a changing tide
1:01:45 > 1:01:48in terms of the women's movement,
1:01:48 > 1:01:51and Alice having a show at the Whitney,
1:01:51 > 1:01:54Alice became an iconic figure.
1:01:54 > 1:01:58And it was an extremely important moment in that respect
1:01:58 > 1:01:59cos here she was,
1:01:59 > 1:02:01here was a woman artist
1:02:01 > 1:02:06having an exhibition in the premier museum for American art.
1:02:08 > 1:02:11- They're going to be fine...- You guys don't remember me, do you?
1:02:11 > 1:02:12..in a few days.
1:02:12 > 1:02:15- Olivia's here. Did you see the painting of Olivia?- Yeah.
1:02:15 > 1:02:19- I just did them.- These are brand-new.- I just did them.
1:02:19 > 1:02:25People like Alice led the sort of path of that direction.
1:02:25 > 1:02:29Here was an artist that was producing extraordinary work
1:02:29 > 1:02:32that wasn't recognised properly,
1:02:32 > 1:02:36and so we could play a role by presenting her to the public.
1:02:36 > 1:02:40And we thought the work was of extraordinary quality.
1:02:40 > 1:02:44I would say the exhibition was the milestone in her career.
1:02:44 > 1:02:47'I'll tell you what that show did for me.
1:02:47 > 1:02:49'I always felt, in a sense,
1:02:49 > 1:02:51'that I didn't have the right to paint
1:02:51 > 1:02:55'because I had two sons and I had so many things
1:02:55 > 1:02:57'that I should be doing, and, here I was, painting.
1:02:57 > 1:03:01'But that show convinced me that I had a perfect right to paint.
1:03:01 > 1:03:04'I shouldn't have ever felt that, but I did feel it.
1:03:04 > 1:03:07'And, after that show, I never felt that any more.'
1:03:07 > 1:03:10You are about to meet a most charming lady...
1:03:10 > 1:03:12APPLAUSE
1:03:12 > 1:03:14Alice Neel is with us tonight.
1:03:14 > 1:03:17She is considered one of America's foremost portrait painters.
1:03:17 > 1:03:20She has the honour of being a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters.
1:03:20 > 1:03:22This is a story of her life and her work.
1:03:22 > 1:03:25Would you welcome, please, Alice Neel. Alice!
1:03:25 > 1:03:28CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:03:28 > 1:03:31PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
1:03:36 > 1:03:37How are you feeling?
1:03:37 > 1:03:38Fine, thank you.
1:03:38 > 1:03:40We really met for the first time
1:03:40 > 1:03:42just for a couple of minutes back in the make-up room.
1:03:42 > 1:03:45Yeah, and he looks so human. I was surprised.
1:03:45 > 1:03:48LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
1:03:48 > 1:03:51You have a good sense of humour. You started on me right away.
1:03:51 > 1:03:53You said, "You actually appear in the flesh?"
1:03:53 > 1:03:56- Yes. Yes.- Occasionally, I do. - And then I said...
1:03:56 > 1:03:57- <- Oh, God! Oh, dear.
1:03:57 > 1:04:02Then I said, "You remind me of a decadent Prince of Wales,
1:04:02 > 1:04:03"rather amused."
1:04:03 > 1:04:06Rather amused, I like...
1:04:06 > 1:04:09- And then he offered to marry me. - That's right.
1:04:09 > 1:04:12We sort of met in the middle of Prince Street,
1:04:12 > 1:04:18and the mutual friend said, "Alice, you know Chuck Close?"
1:04:18 > 1:04:22She said, "Chuck Close? I hate your work!"
1:04:22 > 1:04:24So, I said, "Oh, well,
1:04:24 > 1:04:28"that's interesting, cos I'm a big fan of your work."
1:04:28 > 1:04:34And she said, "In that case, I'll have to take another look."
1:04:34 > 1:04:37This idea of the Bohemian as the person who suffers
1:04:37 > 1:04:39and suffers and suffers and may be silently rewarded
1:04:39 > 1:04:42is one highly-stylised,
1:04:42 > 1:04:46partially true but not entirely true narrative.
1:04:46 > 1:04:48You know?
1:04:48 > 1:04:50In her case, it was largely true, you know?
1:04:50 > 1:04:52And then she shifted gears
1:04:52 > 1:04:55and she entered an art world which had been going on all along,
1:04:55 > 1:04:58of which she'd not been a part, and she hit the big time, right?
1:05:01 > 1:05:04And where is the rest of the party?
1:05:04 > 1:05:07They are not here yet. I told them to hurry.
1:05:07 > 1:05:09And Andrew...
1:05:09 > 1:05:12- Andrew grown up, no? - He gave you that tie.
1:05:12 > 1:05:14Yeah.
1:05:14 > 1:05:16INDISTINCT
1:05:16 > 1:05:19I never expected anything like that.
1:05:19 > 1:05:23- How are you? Nice to see you. - How are you?
1:05:23 > 1:05:26Give me a kiss! Oh, I'm glad to see you.
1:05:26 > 1:05:29- I'm glad to see you. Can I take your picture?- Sure.
1:05:32 > 1:05:35'When I sit in front of a canvas,
1:05:35 > 1:05:38'I don't think about all the notice that I've gotten.
1:05:38 > 1:05:40'I don't think that they think I'm great.
1:05:40 > 1:05:42'I don't think anything of that.
1:05:42 > 1:05:45'All I think of, "Will I be able to do this?"
1:05:45 > 1:05:50'And that's a very good attitude to have for painting.
1:05:50 > 1:05:52'It's not a good attitude for the rat race,
1:05:52 > 1:05:55'but it's good for painting.
1:05:55 > 1:05:57'And I would rather paint than anything.'
1:06:03 > 1:06:07The thing that's difficult I think for you is,
1:06:07 > 1:06:10you were brought up to think that in some way
1:06:10 > 1:06:16the struggle had to be part of the honour.
1:06:17 > 1:06:20She led her life the way she wanted to.
1:06:20 > 1:06:22She didn't lead her life so that
1:06:22 > 1:06:24she'd be a struggling artist.
1:06:24 > 1:06:30The interesting thing about this story is that she became famous,
1:06:30 > 1:06:32so it was worth it.
1:06:32 > 1:06:34Just the slightest twist,
1:06:34 > 1:06:38and she could have never been much heard of, and then what?
1:06:38 > 1:06:40It wouldn't have been worth it?
1:06:42 > 1:06:44She was...
1:06:44 > 1:06:45She was a good mother.
1:06:45 > 1:06:48She was a very good friend to me,
1:06:48 > 1:06:53and the fact that she might not have been able to
1:06:53 > 1:06:57give me the protection that I might have gotten somewhere else,
1:06:57 > 1:07:02that's a fact, but suppose I got the protection
1:07:02 > 1:07:04but I didn't get something else?
1:07:04 > 1:07:10It's just one of those things, I mean, that we have to deal with.
1:07:10 > 1:07:14Every single one of us has to deal with what they're dealt
1:07:14 > 1:07:17and the people we are exposed to.
1:07:18 > 1:07:20And she was...
1:07:20 > 1:07:24It was a gift to have her as a mother, certainly.
1:07:24 > 1:07:26No question about it.
1:07:28 > 1:07:31When you're an artist, you're searching for freedom.
1:07:31 > 1:07:34You'll never find it because there ain't any freedom.
1:07:34 > 1:07:36No?
1:07:36 > 1:07:38But at least you searched for it.
1:07:38 > 1:07:42In fact, art could be called "the search."
1:07:42 > 1:07:46Some of my very good friends from the Harvard radiology program
1:07:46 > 1:07:50were the first ones to see the various tests
1:07:50 > 1:07:53that came through and images that came through.
1:07:53 > 1:07:57So, I walked into one of our lecture rooms
1:07:57 > 1:08:01and she was one of the cases on the board.
1:08:01 > 1:08:03She's dying.
1:08:03 > 1:08:06I had spoken to her on the phone before,
1:08:06 > 1:08:09when she got the word that she had cancer.
1:08:09 > 1:08:13And she said, "Phillip, pray for me."
1:08:13 > 1:08:14And...
1:08:14 > 1:08:18So, what can I do? Pray for her.
1:08:18 > 1:08:21You know, I don't know what purpose it serves,
1:08:21 > 1:08:23my going into detail about this...
1:08:24 > 1:08:28..but it just looked like there was spread of disease, that's all.
1:08:30 > 1:08:32And, that day, when you left,
1:08:32 > 1:08:35did you know that that was the death knell for her?
1:08:35 > 1:08:36I mean, did you...
1:08:36 > 1:08:40- When you saw that, did you think to yourself, "This is..."?- Yes.
1:08:42 > 1:08:44Just a matter of time,
1:08:44 > 1:08:46and not that long a time.
1:09:09 > 1:09:12But here I feel the dice is loaded against me.
1:09:12 > 1:09:15I'm just too old. Still, if I...
1:09:15 > 1:09:17I've painted some good pictures lately.
1:09:17 > 1:09:20I'll do maybe a masterpiece of you.
1:09:21 > 1:09:24But you can't think like that, either.
1:09:24 > 1:09:27Art is not as stupid as human conversation.
1:09:27 > 1:09:29You can really...
1:09:29 > 1:09:30Art is better.
1:09:30 > 1:09:33You never know what the hell makes good art, you know.
1:09:36 > 1:09:37Just the result.
1:09:37 > 1:09:40- What?- Just at the end, you see it when it's done.
1:09:40 > 1:09:43Yeah, when it happens, you're grateful, and there it is.
1:09:46 > 1:09:50She had to be an open nerve to make these paintings.
1:09:52 > 1:09:54Right.
1:09:54 > 1:09:56It's just like a strength that...
1:09:56 > 1:09:58I don't know. It's uncommon.
1:09:58 > 1:10:01Yeah, it comes from within, somewhere.
1:10:01 > 1:10:03HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
1:10:07 > 1:10:11But I think, for me, that is like Alice is...
1:10:11 > 1:10:14Like, she's inspiring because...
1:10:15 > 1:10:17..she's just...
1:10:17 > 1:10:20You know, she teaches you, never give up.
1:10:20 > 1:10:24Never give up your inspiration, you know, your...
1:10:25 > 1:10:27..your bliss, you know? Whatever...
1:10:36 > 1:10:38What?
1:10:38 > 1:10:40Nothing.
1:10:40 > 1:10:42I can't verbalise everything.
1:10:42 > 1:10:45- That's OK. You don't have to. - I've tried, you know?
1:10:45 > 1:10:47No, it's all right, man.
1:10:47 > 1:10:50MUSIC PLAYS OVER SPEECH
1:11:09 > 1:11:12APPLAUSE
1:11:19 > 1:11:22It is my privilege and honour as secretary of the Institute
1:11:22 > 1:11:26to welcome these new members and to introduce them to you.
1:11:26 > 1:11:29May I ask you to wait to applaud the new member
1:11:29 > 1:11:32until I have finished reading the citation.
1:11:32 > 1:11:36Alice Neel, painter, a unique figure...
1:11:36 > 1:11:39APPLAUSE
1:11:43 > 1:11:45Thank you.
1:11:45 > 1:11:48I understand you're breaking ranks.
1:11:48 > 1:11:51A unique figure in contemporary American art,
1:11:51 > 1:11:57Alice Neel is, in this age of photography, a portrait painter.
1:11:57 > 1:12:02She probes courageously, almost violently, into the human psyche.
1:12:02 > 1:12:07Hers is a difficult art to bear without ingratiation,
1:12:07 > 1:12:10without pretty nuances of colour and drawing
1:12:10 > 1:12:12but with great validity.
1:12:13 > 1:12:16Like most serious accomplishment in the arts,
1:12:16 > 1:12:21it supplies the viewer with energy for its own delight.
1:12:21 > 1:12:23APPLAUSE
1:12:33 > 1:12:36The world is in a troublesome period, you know?
1:12:36 > 1:12:42But, actually, I saw a film recently on television with Kenneth Clark,
1:12:42 > 1:12:47and he went back to the 1500s and their theory was mine.
1:12:47 > 1:12:51They said, "Man is the measure of all things."
1:12:51 > 1:12:55That's what I've always thought, and, in fact, one man said,
1:12:55 > 1:12:59"You can do anything you will to do."
1:12:59 > 1:13:02He didn't just mean art, he meant anything in the world.
1:13:02 > 1:13:04And I loved that, too,
1:13:04 > 1:13:08because that means that if you're sufficiently tenacious
1:13:08 > 1:13:09and interested,
1:13:09 > 1:13:13you can accomplish what you want to accomplish in this world.