Alice Neel

Her work was very social realistic.

Some of the artists she admired were Ben Shan, Alice Neel, Cath Colowitz, and there was a Bangladeshi artist, Zanil Abudin.

And they were social realistic painters.

Edward Monk, Nolde, and then

That was my second kind of video directly about this problem of mine.

I remember I went to Moderne Museum in Stockholm to see an exhibition about Alice Neel.

Right.

And the master himself, Michel, of course, did the movie about her.

And then I asked a friend of mine who she was.

And that friend was Taylor Meade, who is like an Andy Warhol actor that I used in my film.

And he said, that's Alice Neel and everything.

So I talked to her and I said, I would like to come and see you in your studio and make a video with you.

Yeah.

And Alice Neel, Alice Neel, the painter Alice Neel, the American painter Alice Neel.

I've always been fascinated by her life and the fact that, you know, she painted these, you know, people in her life, painted her, you know, friends, lovers, neighbours.

all around where she lived in New York and she painted in quite a small apartment in New York and she went for years without having any critical acclaim and she just painted.

Paula Rego always had been.

Further back, I'd always liked the work of Alice Neel, but I'd forgotten about her really until I started to do my portraits, and then she came back so resonant.

I was very lucky to have a year's, not a year, a term, three months studying in Paris, uh, when I was at the Royal College.

So I went to their studio there and immersed myself in all the museums.