Alice Neel: Hot Off the Griddle

by Eleanor Nairne

Dynamic and forward thinking, this unconventional retrospective monograph takes its cues from Alice Neel’s life and work— at once intimate, powerful, and bursting with color.

Alice Neel was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century and a pioneer among women artists. A painter of people, landscape and still life, Neel was never fashionable or in step with avant-garde movements. “One of the reasons I painted was to catch life as it goes by,” she explained, “right hot off the griddle.”

This beautifully designed volume takes a unique approach to the exhibition catalog, highlighting Neel’s understanding of the fundamentally political nature of how we look at others, and what it means to feel seen. Long a favorite of portrait lovers, Neel has recently gained an even wider 21st-century audience appreciative of the searing candor with which she viewed the world, the depth of her humanity, and her championing of the underdog.

This beautifully produced catalog features a thoroughly modern design, as well as an essay by renowned critic Hilton Als and poetry by Daisy Lafarge.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Art History

152 pages, Hardcover

Published May 9, 2023

About the author

Eleanor Nairne is Curator at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, where her recent exhibitions include Lee Krasner: Living Colour and Basquiat: Boom for Real. She is a contributor to publications including the London Review of Books and frieze.

Reviews

[Siobhán McIlveen · Rating 5 out of 5]

My very lovely (and deeply chic) friend Serafina got me this beautiful book for my birthday this year, after we went to see the Alice Neel exhibition at the Barbican. I’m loving reading about art and artists at the moment, and this book provided an excellent overall look at Neel’s life and work :))

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Neel’s recent revived profile has been a welcome shift, and the Barbican’s exhibition in conjunction with the Centre Pompidou one of my highlights of my rounds of London’s 2023 exhibition spaces. This lovely little catalogue captures the spirit of the show perfectly. It includes all of the major pieces, some short essays and a collection of poems related to her work, and a fairly comprehensive timeline exploring both her life and major events that shaped her work. On top of this, it is scattered through with assorted Neel quotations encapsulating the spirit of her portraiture mainly, while the paper and print quality mean the reproductions are extremely good, and the smaller format (what book industry folks often call a ‘C format’) makes it easily manageable. The one omission is that the gallery guide on the day included notes about many of the paintings, including biographical information about many of the sitters that would have likely enriched the catalogue. Even so, this is a delightful and gorgeous introduction to Neel and her work.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The minute I sat in front of a canvas I was happy because it was a world, and I could do what I liked in it.” So wrote Alice Neel, whose major exhibition Hot Off The Griddle is well captured in this book of the same title, which reproduces the displayed works alongside a variety of writings, from Will Gompertz and Eleanor Nairne’s introduction to Nairne’s subsequent essay ‘The Toucher Touching Touched’, to Hilton Als’ ‘A Letter to Alice Neel’ and Daisy Lafarge’s poem ‘Without Wax’, followed finally by Andrew de Brún’s brief Chronology, a useful guide. I enjoyed Nairne’s observations, the timeliness of Als’ piece, and the energy of Lafarge’s poetry: “Composition’s time / pools unproductively, like sweat / in the palm of the sitter, and the stench / of the sitter that permeates the paint.” And then of course there’s all Neel’s own words, which astonish almost as much as her paintings. “I am a collector of souls… I paint my time using the people as evidence.” “The thing that always made me happiest in the world was to paint a good picture.” How lucky we are for that!

[David Kintore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book when I visited the Alice Neel exhibition at the Barbican.

At first glance the book looks surprisingly small compared to most books that accompany exhibitions, but as Will Gompertz and Eleanor Nairne say in their Introduction, this book is ‘intended to be as intimate as one of Neel’s paintings and small enough to read in bed…’

It’s Neel’s wonderful portraits that dominate the book and the exhibition, but her cityscapes are superb too, as in the grimly mesmerizing ‘Longshoremen Returning from Work’ (1936).

Neel’s unshakeable spirit in the face of countless adversities is summed up in one of the quotes from her that are scattered throughout the book:

‘You know what it takes to be an artist? Hypersensitivity and the will of the devil. To never give up.’

[Tabish Khan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely accompaniment to the excellent Alice Neel exhibition at Barbican Art Gallery. It's not your standard chunky art catalogue filled with details but more a small hardback filled with her great images, a few essays and quotes by her. Her work is tied to the age she lived through and the handy timeline at the back mixes her major life events and relevant global events at the time. A quick introduction to Alice Neel.

[Hannah]

The book is designed to be short but I wish it had more portraits AND more text. Neel’s life story is truncated to a timeline at the very end but ended up being far more fascinating than I’d have guessed. I guess this was just meant to be a taste of her work but I found myself wishing for something with more substance.

[Michaela Anchan]

Unfortunately I didn't get to see the exhibition but this is a lovely little intro to Alice Neel with superb range of images, short essays and a comprehensive timeline of her life and current world events at the time.

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

The format of this museum catalogue is more like that of a book you can take to bed or the bathtub to read. Beautiful examples of Neel's work, and thoughtful essays about her practice and Neel's life.

[Amy in the Desert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best kind of art book, a little bit of bio & photos, a little bit of analysis, and a lot of great quality images of her work. I love Alice Neel and her wonky portraits, and this is a fantastic book.

[Poppy Critchlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love loved this

[Loulou Viemeister · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5