Andy Warhol 1970

Alice Neel’s painting of Andy Warhol is a very direct, no-frills image made with loose strokes, and you can see how the white of the canvas peeks through. Just imagine Neel and Warhol together in a room, a painter and her sitter. I imagine Warhol there, pale and bandaged, perhaps a little impatient, while Neel has a job to do, and she’s gonna do it her way. The awkwardness of the pose—the slumped shoulders, the closed eyes, that truss—she’s going to paint it all, with that loose and intuitive way she had. Look at the way she painted his shoes, just a few strokes of brown. It's like she's saying, "I see you, Andy, and I'm going to paint you like I see you, scars and all." There’s an honesty there, a realness that cuts through the pretense. You know, painters, we’re all in conversation with each other, across time. Neel was surely looking at someone like Eakins. It's all one big, messy, beautiful conversation, isn't it? Painting at its best embraces ambiguity, and offers many interpretations.