Alice Neel

“Painting was more than a profession. It was also an obsession. I had to paint.” American artist Alice Neel (Merion Square, Pennsylvania, 1900 – New York, 1984) is considered one of the most original and anti-conformist painters of the XXth century. During the course of her long and difficult career, she completely reinvented the genre of the portrait, painting both common and famous people, among whom are Robert Smithson, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg and Meyer Shapiro. In the 1970s, she became very popular thanks to her appearances on the Johnny Carson “The Tonight Show”. She also gained important accolades and had her first retrospective at New York’s Whitney Museum in 1974. The film is directed by her grandson Andrew Neel and it won the Newport Beach Film Festival Audience Award. By weaving together memories and artworks, the director has produced an intimate and touching portrait of a woman and an artist who always moved against the trend.