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Gifts from The Morning Star
Courage with her convictions
US painter ALICE NEEL remained true to her aesthetic and political principles throughout her artistic life, says Christine Lindey
PAINTING WITH INTEGRITY: (L to R) Linda Nochlin and Daisy, 1973 and Pat Whalen, 1935

ALICE NEEL (1900-1984) was a born rebel. Early on in life, she escaped the strictures of her small Pennsylvanian home town which, she said, “was utterly beautiful in the spring but there was no-one to paint it.”

She had wanted to be an artist since childhood but as her family were not well off she felt obliged to take a secretarial course and studied art at night school while saving up for full-time study.

Once at art college, like many a good-looking and vivacious girl, she was soon seduced, married and pregnant. There followed many years of emotional highs and lows from an eventful love life.

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