For six decades, Alice Neel rendered intimate depictions of strangers, lovers and friends, capturing fleeting moments, moods and personalities in his beloved expressionist paintings. Through October, visitors to the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) can learn about a lesser-known subject of Neel’s paintings: pets. Among a total of 40 works, Alice Neel: it feels like home features five paintings of cats, dogs and a parrot, all depicted by Neel with his characteristic familiarity and attention to individuality.
“It’s something that really hit me when I started doing more research and looking at the work,” said OCMA chief curator Courtenay Finn. Hyperallergic. “They’re characters and personalities in their own right with people, which I think is pretty amazing.” Neel’s pet paintings have already taken center stage: in 2014, the Victoria Miro Gallery in London presented an exhibition titled Alice Neel: My Animals and Other Family. Kirsty Bell wrote a short film book on the subject to accompany the exhibition.
Finn has been working on the show for a year, which explores ideas of home and belonging. One could derive these feelings from a person, like a sibling or a friend, or from a place, like New York, Finn explained. (The exhibit includes scenes from everyday life in the Big Apple, where Neel lived for 60 years before he died in 1984.) A sense of place can also come from a pet, the curator added.
Finn placed the five pet portraits in the first of four galleries in the exhibit. “The idea was that when you go to someone’s house, if they have a pet, it’s often whoever greets you first – the cat or the dog,” she said.
Finn highlighted one of his favorite works on the show, a 1967 painting titled “Julia and Aristotle.” Julia, a frequent subject in Neel’s work, was the girlfriend and later wife of his son Hartley’s college best friend. Finn described Julia’s look as “a sidelong eye”.
“And then his dog looks up, like, ‘Sorry about my human,'” Finn noted. “He looks more welcoming, but also a little worried. And he’s right there by her side. When Neel did the work, Julia was in her twenties and had just been pregnant. this life event can be reflected in Julia’s apprehensive facial expression.
Finn thinks that Aristotle, appearing protective and a little worried, also knows that Julia is pregnant. “There’s something nice about how animals are able to sense something about humans and the body that we might not even be aware of,” Finn said. “They are our friends and protectors.”
Neel owned many pets throughout his life, including a series of cats and dogs that came and went throughout his long life. Family albums show her lying on a couch with a kitten in her lap and posing with what appears to be a German Shepherd; in this last image, the dog is sitting in front of Neel, appearing much taller than her and holding a dignified gaze. Neel’s children and grandchildren later adored their own pets, also recorded in a slew of photographs held by The Estate of Alice Neel.
Finn highlighted another of his favorites in the exhibition, “Ginny and the Parrot” (1970) – a vibrant depiction of Henry Miller, Hartley’s bright green bird and his wife Ginny. The couple even brought Henry to their wedding. Ginny bends one leg over the other as she stretches out her arm like a perch for the parrot, who stares ahead with what can only be interpreted as a smile. Ginny, hunched over, seems to put Henry Miller’s needs first, choosing to give the bird a comfortable resting place rather than sit down herself.
The owner-pet dynamic shines through again in “Victoria and the Cat” (1980), a later painting that depicts Neel’s granddaughter.
“She’s holding the cat in this really awkward pose that only kids can get away with with their pets: the cat looks a little puzzled but also very comfortable,” Finn said.
Finn recalled a 1950 photograph of Hartley holding a kitten that showcases the same iconic relationship children have with animals conveyed in ‘Victoria and the Cat,’ rendered 30 years and a generation after the photo was taken in black and white. The two cats share a distinct expression of comfortable annoyance. In “Hartley with Cat” (1969), another work presented at Feels like home, Neel’s son grew from a boy to a young man. In both sessions, Hartley lures the animal close to his chest and almost hides behind him, making it look like he may not have grown much at all.
“What’s really good about Neel’s work is that the children and animals are rendered with such attention to detail and personality as the adult characters,” Finn said. “They are not props to say something bigger about adults: they are characters in their own right.”
