For Camille: Vitreous Femmage

For Camille, vitreous femmage, 10 x 10"

Just completed this vitreous femmage of Camille Claudel, muse, apprentice and artist of Rodin's studio. Her life was tragic. I believe she was truly a feminist at heart, suffering for the life of her art and expression. Heartbroken, after her affair ended with Rodin, and her time of seclusion, her brother committed her to an asylum. He considered her art to be too risque and what he considered signs of dementia. She spent the rest of her life in confinement.

This piece was composed at No Boundaries artist colony on Baldhead Island in November, and just fired/fused. It will be exhibited in January 2012 for the 2011 No Boundaries exhibition at Acme Arts in Wilmington, NC. Looking forward to seeing again, new artist friends made there!

For a great biographical film on Camille, view Netflix:

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Camille_Claudel/60003618?trkid=2361637

Uomini Famosi: Archive of Women Artists

Uomini Famosi: Archive of Women Artists

(Installation of 50 Vitreous paintings on glass, each 8 x 10")

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and ‘she-roes’!”

~Maya Angelou

Embracing the mission of the Guerilla Girls, a feminist art group fighting for the rights of women artists, past and present, this work seeks to celebrate the contributions of these ‘she-roes’. With an intention to re-inform the art canon, the faces of women artists over the centuries are re-presented. Many of who, during their lifetime received a lack of recognition, surpassed by the hegemony of their male-dominated world. With influences as diverse as Hildegard de Bingen and Lee Krasner, new synergies are crafted from both opaque and transparent structures. This work ranges an exploration of painting with oils to compositions in glass. Maternal meta-narratives further homage the neglected ‘other-half’.

To view the hyperlink of the Uomini Famosi archive with the artist names, view:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

To view this archive in reality, mark your calendars for my exhibition at Salem College in February-March: http://www.salem.edu/events/she-roes-works-by-betti-pettinati-longinotti

Guerilla Girl 4: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Guerilla Girl 4: Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10"

Finally completed #50 for my installation of Uomini Famosi, Guerilla Girl 4.

I have completed 31 of a current total of 50 vitreous paintings on glass of women artists this semester which will debut at Salem College in my solo exhibition, She-roes in February - March. See: http://www.salem.edu/events/she-roes-works-by-betti-pettinati-longinotti

The cost of shipping my 31 paintings on glass this semester will prohibit shipping all of these to Boston to the upcoming residency in January. I choosing 15 of the 31 to ship.

To view a 2007 lecture of the Guerilla Girls at MOMA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHVBZh5HBgc

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Nancy Spero: Vitreous painting on glass

Nancy Spero, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Nancy Spero (1926-2009) was a painter who, through her artwork and her direct political engagement, made sexism, racism, violence, and the abuse of power the main themes of her career. In the 1960s much of her work related to the Vietnam War; the War Series (1966-70) depicted rudimentary, phallic bombs and helicopters against plain white backgrounds. This technique, of drawing or painting isolated images on sheets of paper, sometimes with stamped typography and collage, became her signature. As, in the 1970s, she began to concentrate solely on the experiences and oppressive treatment of women, she developed a simplified vocabulary of forms: goddesses, gods, animals, monsters, and disembodied heads. Her work Torture in Chile(1974), for example, was a pale image of heads, geometric constructions, and snakes, hung below the printed words “Torture in Chile women reaching the Buen Pastor Jail have been subjected to the most brutal tortures live mice and insects introduced into vaginas hair pulled out by the handfuls nipples blown off or burnt genitals destroyed by electricity.”

Spero’s political interests in the 1970s ran parallel to the subjects that she was exploring in her artwork. In 1969 she joined the Art Workers Coalition, an organization that worked to address iniquities in the art world and in society in general (one of its main causes being an end to the Vietnam War). She also became active in Women Artists in Revolution and, in 1972, co-founded Artists in Residence (A.I.R.) Gallery, a cooperative exhibition space in New York for women artists.

Spero has received awards from the College Art Association, the Women’s Caucus for Art, Skowhegan, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the MIT List Visual Arts Center, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

For more information on Nancy Spero:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/nancy-spero

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Homage paintings to Frida and Krasner finally completedH

So I finally, after nearly a semester of work, finally completed my homage paintings to Krasner and Frida.

Each painting is mixed media with a photo montage, chalk pastel ground, underpainting, over-painting, and graphite drawing. Layers of white and silver paint with weeks of drying time in between accompanied the process within these paintings.

My technique grew out of an exploration with intuitive abstract expressionist painting inspired by Richard Pousette-Dart's, Predominantly White Paintings, viewed at the Phillips Collection during my first semester of work. Though my work has changed significantly since those first explorations, I still use layers of pastel color and paint before drawing over the textural painted surface.

My mentor this semester, Pam Toll, in her first critique of my work this semester, viewing completed paintings of last semester, suggested I use more value with the graphite in their last stage.

Each painting is 3 x 5'.

Howardena Pindell: Vitreous Painting on glass

Howardena Pindell, Vitreous Painting on Glass, 8 x 10”

World renowned abstract artist Howardena Pindell was born on April 14, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Pindell became interested in art at an early age when she began taking art classes on Saturdays. She started out as a figurative painter. Pindell received her B.F.A. degree in painting from Boston University's School of Fine and Applied Arts in 1965, and her M.F.A. degree from Yale University's School of Art and Architecture in 1967. Pindell has two honorary doctorates, one from the Massachusetts College of Art and one from Parson School of Design in New York.

Pindell began her career in the art world as the first African American Associate Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books at the New York Museum of Modern Art, a position she held for twelve years. She rose from Curatorial Assistant to Associate Curator during that time. In 1979, Pindell began a new career as Associate Professor of Students at State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Pindell's earliest drawings, composed of a patterned sequence of words and numbers on graph paper, suggest post minimalism as a major ingredient in her abstractions. In the 1970s, Pindell developed a collage technique using small circles hand punched from sheets of blank or printed paper. After numbering each one individually, she pasted them on sheets of punched and un-punched paper so that they floated on surfaces at once porous and solid. In the 1980s, she moved to photo-based collage, video and relief paintings with intensely political subject matter. Pindell has traveled extensively to Africa, Asia, Europe, Russia, Latin America and the Caribbean, lived in Japan for seven months and in India for four months. She uses these journeys and experiences as inspiration to integrate her own history as content for the autobiographies of her life. Between 1995 and 1999, Pindell taught at Yale University as a visiting professor. From 2003 to 2006, she served as Director of the MFA Program at Stony Brook University. Pindell is currently a full Professor of Art at Stony Brook University.

Pindell's belief that the arts community should become more inclusive of women and minorities sparked a revolution in her work. She published groundbreaking studies that document the lack of representation of artists of color through racism, censorship and violence.

Her works are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale Art Museum, New Haven, the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, and the Rhode Island School of Art Museum. Pindell is also an accomplished writer; a book of her writings, The Heart of the Question, was published in 1997.

For more information on Howardena Pindell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIf7daOqTI&feature=related

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Imogen Cunningham: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Imogen Cunningham, Vitreous Painting on Glass, 8 x 10”

Imogen Cunningham is renowned as one of the greatest female photographers. She started her photographic career at the age of 18 and was still taking photographs up until her passing at age of 93.

She was born in Portland Oregon on April 12, 1883. Cunningham was one of 10 children born to Isaac and Susan. She was named after a character in William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Cunningham was home schooled until the age of 8, when she was finally enrolled in school. She always had an affinity for art, and she bought her first camera a 4 X 5 inch view camera at the age of 18.

After losing interest in photography she sold the camera to a friend. Five years later her renewed interest occurred due to her enrollment at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her inspiration came from the work of Gertrude Käsebier. With the assistance of her history professor Cunningham began studying the chemistry behind photography. She helped pay for her tuition by photographing plants for the botany department.

Cunningham went to work with Edward S. Curtis in his Seattle studio. This gave her insight into the commercial workings of a portrait business. In 1909 Cunningham won a scholarship from her sorority (Pi Beta Phi) which allowed her to study abroad. On her professor’s advice she decided to study with Professor Robert Luther at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, Germany. While in Germany she focused on her studies and completed a paper entitled “About the Direct Development of Platinum Paper for Brown Tones”. This paper described her process to increase printing speed and improve the clarity of highlight tones.

After returning from Dresden, she opened a portrait gallery in Seattle, Washington, and soon established a national reputation. Most of the work she did at her studio involved portraits and nature shots done around her cottage. In 1913 she exhibited at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Science. She had some of her photographs published in Wilson’s Photographic Magazine in 1914 and an exhibit in New York entitled “An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography.”

In 1915 she met and married artist Roi Partridge. She photographed a series of nude photographs of her husband, which were shown by the Seattle Fine Arts Society, although critically praised, she received negative response from society at large.

Between 1915 and 1920 Cunningham continued her work and had three children (Gryffyd, Rondal, and Padraic) with Roi. Then in 1920 they left Seattle for San Francisco where Roi taught at Mills College.

Cunningham had many interests photographically. She particularly enjoyed photographing nudes and plants in their natural environment. The results were an amazing body of work filled with bold, contemporary subjects. Cunningham loved the use of textures and natural light. She is best known for some of her outstanding floral images which she photographed during the 1920’s.

Cunningham was best known for her sharply focused images of flowers and her revealing portraits. In 1932, Cunningham became one of the co-founders of the group F/64, which included such well known photographers as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. F/64 had a show in San Francisco that helped revive photography on the West Coast.

As a result of this show she gained a contract with Vanity Fair. Her husband wanted her to wait until he was free to travel, but she refused and they later divorced. In the 1940s, Cunningham tried her hand at documentary street photography. Although she enjoyed it, she made most of her living from her commercial and studio photography.

Ansel Adams invited her to join the faculty at the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts. Some of her colleagues included Dorothea Lange and Minor White.

Cunningham continued her photographic legacy until shortly before her death in 1976 at the age of 93.

For more information on Imogen Cunningham:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/building/art/ImogenCunningham/

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Yoko Ono: Vitreous Painting on glass

Yoko Ono, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Yoko Ono

February 18 1933 - present

Since the beginning of her prolific career, Yoko Ono has consistently been a pioneer in developing new art forms, moving freely beyond and between the genres, from the avant-garde to Pop. Her profoundly social art aims to involve the viewer as an active participant and to break down longstanding distinctions between art and everyday life.

Ono has been credited with being one of the originators of Conceptual Art, and during the 1960s Ono was a key participant in many of the innovations of the New York, Tokyo, and London vanguards, including Fluxus and underground film and performance which laid the groundwork for major developments in the music andperformance art of the later part of the century.

When she married John Lennon in 1969, the couple made use of the media coverage surrounding their honeymoon to campaign for world peace, a theme that suffused many of the collaborative pieces they later created. Ono’s work in the 1990s addressed themes of change, survival, and time. From the 1980s to the present her artwork has been shown internationally in one-woman shows and retrospectives. YES Yoko Ono, Ono’s major retrospective show, has earned critical acclaim and traveled throughout the United States and Canada and more recently to Europe, Korea and Japan, where it concluded the worldwide tour.

Reflecting on her reputation for being outrageous, Ono smiles and says, "I do have to rely on my own judgment, although to some people my judgment seems a little out of sync. I have my own rhythm and my own timing, and that's simply how it is."

For more information on Yoko Ono:

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/66/YokoOnoWorkControversy

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Modern Masters exhibition at Reynolda House, Museum of American Art

I am really pleased I finally was able to view the Modern Masters exhibit at Reynolda House, Museum of American Art this afternoon. I arranged a visit with my National Art Honor Society chapter. The pieces that most impressed me were the paintings by Hans Hoffman, one extremely rich with heavy impasto application and abstract expressionism at its height. … a gorgeous piece! Hoffman is so deeply ingrained into my practice as an artist and teacher, to see such a wonderful piece by him was so richly rewarding and self-affirming.

I was also moved to see 5 women in the exhibition: Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Grace Hartigan, and Ann Truitt. Makes me keep going when I learn of new women artists that need to be included in the ‘archive’.

However, I am winding down on my numbers to complete by the end of the semester. This archive is something I will need to continue, and who knows when it will end. It is like quicksand, the more I accomplish the more I become aware of.

Besides the above, I was humored to see a painting by Larry Rivers before his style became commercialized. It was a very figurative and gestural painting.

I also enjoyed viewing a “Happenings” painting by Jim Dine. I love Jim Dine, but at first glance I was not the least impressed with the painting. But after hearing the curator speak, I had a different understanding of this very expressionistic and angry painting of the ‘60s.

Exhibition Description:

Modern Masters — an exhibit on loan from the Smithsonian —Reynolda House, Museum of American Art

By Michael Breedlove, Winston Salem Monthly

Forty-three pivotal paintings, 31 pioneering artists, one historic locale. That’s the story behind the “Modern Masters” exhibit at Reynolda House, a groundbreaking show that’s on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum starting October 7.

Brimming with energy and tending toward the abstract, the exhibit offers a narrative on American life post-World War II, told through the talents of artists who were shifting the way the world thought of art.

“The mid-20th century was an amazing period for American art,” says Allison Perkins, executive director of Reynolda House. “It’s really the first time that Americans began having a major influence on the international art market. For us to host this exhibit—one that contains the Smithsonian’s best treasures—is really a coup for Winston-Salem.”

Reynolda House is one of only six venues nationwide to host the exhibit, and the final stop before it returns to D.C. Perkins says the show presented quite a challenge because of its size—some works are nearly as big as billboards—forcing officials to completely reconfigure the gallery. Still, she says the exhibit provides the “perfect complement” to the rest of Reynolda’s art collection, which tends to taper off by the mid-20th century. “We’re really excited to offer something the public isn’t used to seeing here. [The exhibit] lets us continue telling the story of American art.”

For more details, including a complete list of events, visit www.reynoldahouse.org.

Maya Lin: Vitreous Painting on glass

Maya Lin, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Maya Lin, Born 1959-

Maya Lin is a Chinese-American artist and architect. She is best known for her work, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in Washington, D.C.

Birth, family, and education

Lin was born in Athens, Ohio, on October 5, 1959. Her parents were originally from China, but moved to Ohio in 1949. Her father is Henry Huan Lin. He taught art at Ohio University, and her mother, Julia Chang Lin, taught literature at the same school.

Maya Lin attended Yale University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in architecture in 1981, and a master of architecture from Yale's School of Architecture in 1986. While she was still an undergraduate, Lin entered a public design competition for the Vietnam Memorial. She won the competition against 1,400 other entries. Lin was only 21 at the time.

The Vietnam Wall-

The project was attacked from the beginning for several reasons, including the aesthetics of the design and Lin's heritage. However, Lin did not deviate from her efforts, and oversaw the entire construction process. The cut stone masonry “Wall” was granite and V-shaped with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other to the Washington Monument. It was dedicated in 1982, and has become one of the most visited pubic memorials in the United States.

A career continues

Lin has created other works, including the Women's Table at Yale University (1993), and the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, Alabama (1988-1993). Lin is strongly concerned about the environment. She incorporates recycled, living, and other natural materials in her work.

Maya Lin has served on the Board of Energy Foundation as well as on the National Advisory Board to the Presidio Council in San Francisco. She also has served on The Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project, the Kennedy Museum of Art at Ohio University, and Studio in a School in New York City, New York.

Honors and a home life

Lin has earned numerous awards during her lifetime, including the architecture prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for building designs. She also has received the Presidential Design Award, The American Institute of Architects Honor Award, and the Henry Bacon Memorial Award; and honorary doctorates in Fine Arts from Harvard, Yale, Brown, Smith, and Williams.

She now owns and operates Maya Lin Studios in New York City, New York. She is married to Daniel Wolf and they have two children. Lin also was on the committee that selected the 9/11 Memorial to be constructed at Ground Zero in Manhattan.

Lin is the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision The title is derived from a speech she gave at Yale when she spoke of the monument design process.

For more on Maya Lin:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/maya-lin

or

Maya Lin- Design for A Living World

http://vimeo.com/32265994

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Camille Claudel: Vitreous painting on glass

Camille Claudel, Vitreous Painting on glass, 8 x 10"

Camille Claudel
French, 1864-1943

As a young woman, Camille Claudel was recognized for both her artistic talent and her physical beauty; nevertheless, she spent most of her adult life as a recluse. Much attention has been focused on Claudel's relationship with her teacher, mentor, and lover, Auguste Rodin. Her complex personal drama has brought her prominence through scholarly and popular accounts. Yet it was first and foremost her unrivaled ability to convey narrative through marble and bronze that attracted patrons and critical accolades.

Born in Fère-en-Tardenois, Aisne, Claudel moved with her family to Paris around 1881. She studied sculpture at the Académie Colarossi, one of the few art academies in France open to female students. Along with other sculptors, she also shared an independent studio where Alfred Boucher taught. In 1883 Boucher won a Prix de Rome and departed for Italy; he asked Rodin to serve as adviser to Claudel and her colleagues in his stead.

Two years later, Rodin asked Claudel to become a studio assistant. By working as Rodin's apprentice, Claudel had the chance to study the nude figure, an unusual opportunity for a woman in the 19th century, but one that gave the artist a profound understanding of anatomical nuances. Claudel modeled hands and feet for Rodin's Burghers of Calais and posed for figures in his Gates of Hell.

In 1893, because Rodin's work and stature occupied front stage in French culture, Claudel secluded herself in her studio to disassociate herself from him and to try to establish her own reputation. Her love for portraying the human form resulted in certain sculptures that the state and an infuriated press censored as overly sensual and inappropriate for public display. These circumstances may have contributed to the decline of her career and her mental state. In 1913 Claudel was committed to a mental asylum, where she remained until her death 30 years later.

For more on Camille Claudel:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/camilleclaudel.htm

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Louise Bourgeois: Vitreous painting on glass

Louise Bourgeois, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

(1911, Paris - 2010)

Louise Bourgeois was born on December 25, 1911, in Paris. As a teenager, Bourgeois assisted her parents in their tapestry-restoration business, making drawings that indicated to the weavers the repairs to be made. In 1932, she entered the Sorbonne to study mathematics, but abandoned that discipline for art. In the mid- to late 1930s, she studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Académie de la Grande-Chaumière, École du Louvre, Atelier Fernand Léger, and other Parisian schools. In 1938, Bourgeois married an American, the art historian Robert Goldwater, and moved to New York. There, she studied for two years at the Art Students League and was soon participating in print exhibitions.

After moving to a new apartment in 1941, Bourgeois began to make large wood sculptures on the roof of her building. In 1945, her first solo show, comprised of twelve paintings, was held at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York and her work was first included in the Whitney Annual (later the Whitney Biennial). In the mid- to late 1940s, she worked at Stanley William Hayter's printshop, Atelier 17, where she met Le Corbusier, Joan Miró, and other Europeans exiled by World War II. In 1949, she exhibited works from her Personage series in the first show of her sculpture, at Peridot Gallery in New York.

In 1951, Bourgeois became an American citizen. Continuing her mode of abstracted figuration instilled with psychological and symbolic content, she remained stylistically distinct from New York School developments. She did, however, join American Abstract Artists in 1954. In the 1960s, she taught in public schools and at Brooklyn College and Pratt Institute in New York. She would continue to teach at colleges and universities during the following decade. In the late 1960s, Bourgeois's imagery became more explicitly sexual as she explored the relationship between men and women and the emotional impact of her troubled childhood (her father had had a ten-year affair with her governess). From 1967 until 1972, she made trips to Pietrasanta, Italy, to work in marble.

With the rise of feminism and the art world's new pluralism, her work found a wider audience. In the 1970s, she began to doPerformance pieces—among them A Banquet/A Fashion Show of Body Parts (1978), in which she wrapped art historians and students in white drapery with sewn-in anatomical forms—and expanded the scale of her three-dimensional work to large environments.

The first retrospective of Bourgeois's work was organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1982–83); and her first European retrospective was assembled by the Frankfurter Kunstverein (1989). Bourgeois was selected to be the American representative to the 1993 Venice Biennale. Her collected writings were published in 1998. In 2000, three thirty-foot-high towers by Bourgeois, commissioned by the Tate Modern in London—I Do, I Undo, and I Redo—were featured in that museum's inaugural exhibition. Many of her large-scale works have been exhibited as public art, including three spider sculptures installed at Rockefeller Center in New York in 2001 under the aegis of the Public Art Fund.

Bourgeois' achievements have been recognized with, among other honors, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1973), membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1981), a grand prize in sculpture from the French Ministry of Culture (1991), and the National Medal of Arts (1997).

For more on Louise Bourgeois view:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/louise-bourgeois

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass

Alice Neel: Vitreous painting on glass

Alice Neel, Vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

American, 1900-1984

Alice Neel endured an extraordinarily difficult life to become one of the century's most powerful portrait painters. Raised in rural Pennsylvania, Neel turned her back on middle-class society by becoming a professional artist, an ardent political activist, and a resident of a poor urban neighborhood. She was graduated from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) in 1925 and fell in love with the Cuban painter Carlos Enríquez. They married and moved to Havana, where their daughter Santillana was born. In 1927 they settled in New York City and Neel's life began to fall apart. First, Santillana died of diphtheria; then Enríquez suddenly moved to Paris, taking their second daughter with him. In 1930-31 Neel suffered a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, and was hospitalized for six months. Soon after her release, Neel began living with a drug-addicted man who slashed 60 of her paintings. Two subsequent relationships-with the Puerto Rican guitarist José Santiago and the Russian-born filmmaker Sam Brody, were also volatile.

Neel's unconventional life parallels the approach she took toward portraiture. Her images-whether of Nobel laureates, art world celebrities, relatives, or neighbors-are unfailingly, often disconcertingly, honest. It is hard to imagine any other painter creating such confrontational male nudes or such a startling self-portrait, wearing nothing but her eyeglasses, at the age of 81. Even when Neel's sitters are clothed, they seem naked given the artist's uncanny ability to reveal their personalities.

Because Neel never adjusted her painting style to fit prevailing art world fashions, her early work received limited attention. During the last decades of her life, however, Neel achieved great success. Her many honors included the National Women's Caucus for Art outstanding achievement award, which President Jimmy Carter presented to her in 1979.

For more information on Alice Neel:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-chafin/alice-neel-up-close-and-p_b_853837.html

To view my progressing archive of women artists, Uomini Famosi:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113967877601706753492/UominiFamosi_VitreousPaintingsonGlass