William Walton 1967

Alice Neel painted this oil on canvas portrait of William Walton in 1969. I love the feeling that this piece is a direct record of seeing. Note how she uses thin washes of colour, especially in the face, with these pinks and blues that feel so human, so immediate. There's an honesty, a vulnerability, in the way she captures the sitter's gaze. Look at the left arm; the paint is thin, almost translucent, and the lines are confident and expressive. You can feel the hand of the artist, the movement of the brush. The bold outlines and the loose handling of the paint throughout create a sense of immediacy and intimacy. Neel's portraits, like those of Lucien Freud, are unflinching. They don’t shy away from the complexities and imperfections of the human form and leave you feeling like you know something true about the subject.