ALICE NEEL
It is a cold, grey winter morning in Swannanoa and in Paris it is mild and raining hard. Since I am in both places at once it is a good time to be inside and luckily there is an Alice Neel exhibit at the Pompidou for us to visit at only $15 admission. I really like Alice Neel as a painter. She painted ordinary people in Spanish Harlem where she lived. A number of her paintings are female nudes, often pregnant, but nudes painted in a realistic style, not from a male perspective which she felt demeaned women. All of her paintings are of neighbors or relatives or friends. She gained little recognition during her lifetime. She died in 1984. But this current exhibit of over 100 paintings: Alice Neel: People Come First which is now at the Pompidou in Paris was in San Francisco this summer when I Amtraked around the country. So I know exactly what Todd and Susie are seeing and am with them. Susie just sent me a text photograph of a painting and I will add some of the photographs I took of the exhibit this summer.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 