Enduring power of portraits explored
Works by painter Alice Neel and photographer Diane Arbus go on show
Portraiture reveals truths about facets of a person’s identity and humanity. Through the artist’s depiction of their subject, viewers gain insight into the intersections between memory and history and between artistry and subjectivity.
This is exemplified in two new exhibitions at the David Zwirner art gallery in Central.
“Alice Neel: Men from the Sixties” shows nine paintings by Neel. One floor below is “Diane Arbus: First Coming”, showing 28 gelatin silver prints of work by the photographer. They are the first solo exhibitions in Greater China of works by either artist, and are on display until December 21.
At a time when many artists gravitated towards abstract art, Neel was dedicated to figurative painting. Even though she painted throughout her life – including during a stint at a psychiatric hospital – it was only late in her career, in the 1960s, that critics began to appreciate her work.
Neel’s personal life was difficult – her first daughter died of diphtheria just before vaccination against it became widely practised, and her second daughter was taken from her by husband Carlos Enriquez to Cuba under the pretext of him looking for a place to live in Paris.
The artist’s grief and trauma permeated her work, which touches on motherhood, loss and anxiety. Her paintings, many of them female nudes, are a direct challenge to male painters whose work objectifies women.
Neel was not interested just in painting female subjects, however, as shown in her series “Men from the Sixties” – paintings of friends and family members. In the eponymous Richard (1967), Neel depicts her son sitting on a striped chair in his underwear.
Dick Kollmar (1965), the only standing full-body portrait in the exhibition, depicts a neighbour’s son who attended Columbia University classes in a full suit. Other subjects were strangers, including Man From Fordham (1965). She met its subject at a Fordham University lecture and subsequently asked to paint him.
In all her works the eyes command attention, and invite a dialogue between subject and viewer. Although she mainly painted people, Neel did not like being considered a portrait painter. To the artist, portraiture had been tainted as a low form of art, and one with which she did not want to be associated. She viewed her paintings simply as an avenue for getting at truth.
Similarly, Arbus sought to communicate truth.
She began her career in commercial fashion photography with her husband, Allan Arbus, but eventually grew dissatisfied with the work. She studied under Austrian-born American photographer Lisette Model, who encouraged her to pursue solo endeavours, and it was then that Arbus began capturing the intimate black-and-white portraits for which she is best known today.
She revelled in the strangeness of the people she photographed. Taken in public or in private spaces familiar to her subjects, her portraits are of everyone from circus performers to nudists, from sets of twins to old people.
While Arbus, like Neel, achieved some recognition in the 1960s, it was her posthumous retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1972 that catapulted her work into the art world’s purview.
Held at a time when photography was not shown the respect afforded other fine arts, the exhibition inspired a flurry of impassioned reactions, both critical and complimentary.
Some commentators, including Susan Sontag, felt that Arbus’ photographs were disturbing and repulsive; others were impressed by the empathy and humanity they saw.
Among the works on view at David Zwirner, all editions printed by Neil Selkirk, is The Backwards Man in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1961. At first glance, contortionist Joe Allen’s physicality indicates an immediate strangeness. Look closer and the viewer sees that his feet face in the opposite direction to his upper body.
Another photograph taken in a private space is Topless dancer in her dressing room, San Francisco, Cal. 1968. Nudity is common in Arbus’ photographs, but she doesn’t sexualise subjects. In this image she reveals the performative posing of the topless dancer, and innocence in A young waitress at a nudist camp, N.J. 1963.
Two notable close-up portraits on display are Blonde girl with shiny lipstick, N.Y.C. 1967 and Woman with a veil on Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C. 1968, where the subjects’ facial features, make-up and accessories are the focus. As in many Arbus photographs, the borders of the negative have been exposed, drawing attention to the printing process.
While vastly different, Neel and Arbus are notable for the honesty of their portraiture. Whether depicting a friend, a family member or a stranger they met on the street, both wanted to draw attention to the human condition, however different or strange.
Some commentators … felt that Arbus’ photographs were disturbing and repulsive
“Alice Neel: Men from the Sixties” and “Diane Arbus: First Coming”, David Zwirner, 5-6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Tues-Sat, 10am-7pm. Until Dec 21