1980
October 14: Self-Portrait, 1980, is exhibited for the first time in Selected 20th Century American Self-Portraits at the Harold Reed Gallery, a benefit for
the Third Street Music School Settlement.
After several incidents where she loses
consciousness, and on the insistence of her sons, Richard and
Hartley, Neel undergoes tests at Massachusetts General Hospital
in Boston. It is discovered that she has sick sinus syndrome
leading to episodes of bradycardia. A pacemaker is immediately
inserted to regulate her heart rate.
1981
February 5-March 1: Alice Neel ’81: A Retrospective, 1926-1981 is held at the C. Grimaldis Gallery in
Baltimore.
July: Travels to the Soviet Union with her
sons and daughters-in-law and several grandchildren for a solo
exhibition of her work at the Artists’ Union in Moscow.
It is organized by Phillip Bonosky, who is the Daily Worker correspondent
in Moscow.
1982
March 29: New York City Mayor Ed Koch hosts
a dinner at Gracie Mansion in honor of Neel, showcasing the
portrait of him she has recently completed and showing a few of
her other paintings. The Guarneri String Quartet performs. Many
of Neel’s sitters are in attendance, including David
Soyer, the cellist with the Guarneri; the Mayor; Henry
Geldzahler; Michel Auder; Duane Hanson; Annie Sprinkle; and
Andy Warhol. Auder and Warhol record the event in video and
photography respectively.
Signs on with the Robert Miller Gallery,
New York. Her first exhibition there is Alice Neel Non-Figurative Works (May 4-June 5).
Receives a commendation from the City of
Philadelphia, presented by Richard Doran, City Representative
and Director of Commerce.
1983
March 17-April 17: Participates in the
National Academy of Design’s 158th Annual
Exhibition and receives the Benjamin
Altman Figure Prize for $3,000.
Receives a $25,000 artist fellowship from
the National Endowment for the Arts.
Patricia Hill’s book Alice Neel (New
York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983), the first fully illustrated
monograph on Neel’s work, is published. It features
Neel’s own account of her life, gathered through
interviews with Hills.
1984
February: Has a solo exhibition at the
Robert Miller Gallery, exhibiting forty paintings representing
her work from the 1930s to the present.
February 21: Appears on Johnny
Carson’s ‘The Tonight Show’ and proves
herself a skilled entertainer.
On a routine visit to the Massachusetts
General Hospital to have her pacemaker checked, X-rays indicate
that she has advanced colon cancer which has already spread to
her liver. She immediately undergoes surgery and afterwards
returns to Vermont to stay with Hartley and Ginny and their
children while she recuperates. While there, she is interviewed
by Judith Higgins of Artnews for a
cover story.
Spring--summer: Despite her poor health, in
April, she returns to New York and Spring Lake. With the help
of Richard and Nancy, she continues her busy schedule. Among
her many commitments, interviews for the ArtNews article
continue, and, on June 19, she makes a second appearance on
‘The Tonight Show’ during which she insists that
Johnny Carson visit her in New York to sit for a portrait.
July: She returns to Vermont to spend time
with Hartley and his family and to lecture at the Vermont
Studio Center.
Receives chemotherapy treatment for her
cancer. Much debilitated, she spends the end of the summer in
Spring Lake with Richard and his family. Despite her weakened
condition, she continues to paint.
Early fall: She returns to her apartment in
New York.
October: Appears on the cover of the ArtNews issue that
features the article by Judith Higgens, ‘Alice Neel and
the Human Comedy’. Robert Mapplethorpe visits early in
October to photograph Neel. Plans to return to Vermont to visit
Hartley and his family and to attend a lecture in her honor at
the Fleming Museum in Burlington, Vermont. However, she is too
weak to travel, and on October 13, she dies, with her family at
her side, at her apartment in New York.
In a private ceremony, surrounded by her
sons, their wives and her grandchildren, she is buried, according to her wishes,
near her studio in Vermont.
Obituaries recount her courageous life, her
dedication to art, and her struggles against the tide of the
art world. William G. Blair of the New
York Times calls her (October 14)
‘the quintessential bohemian ... [whose] unconventional
and intense representational portraits, many painted in her
early years, were neglected, even resented, in official art
world circles’ and notes that ‘in the last decades
of her life, the honors that had been denied her came her
way.’ Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes
(October 16): ‘Steadfast in the pursuit of her own vision
and amused by her ability to shock both the art world and the
arbiters of American taste, Miss Neel lived a singular life
devoted to painting and to the laughing, suffering world around
her.’
1985
February 7: A memorial service for Alice
Neel is held at the Whitney Museum of American Art. David Soyer
and the Guarneri String quartet perform. Thomas Armstrong, the
director of the Whitney; Mayor Edward Koch; Jack Baur, the
former director of the Whitney and Patricia Hills speak at the
service. Allen Ginsberg gives the first public reading of his
poem ‘White Shroud’.
Notes: Much of the biographical information
in this chronology was compiled by the Philadelphia Museum of
Art for the catalogue of the centennial exhibition in 2000.
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Neel pictured with her Self-Portrait 1980
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Neel with New York Mayor, Ed Koch, at
Gracie Mansion 1982
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Alice Neel on the Johnny Carson show, 1984
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Neel, in wheel chair, with her two sons,
Hartley (left) and Richard, at the Vermont Studio Center. Also
pictured is Ginny, Hartley’s wife, and Richard’s
first wife, Nancy (left) 1984
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Neel in Spring Lake with her sons Richard,
left, and Hartley, 1984
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