Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Spanish Harlem
Alice Neel American
Not on view
Created the same year Neel moved from Greenwich Village to Spanish Harlem, where the family of her son Richard’s father, José Santiago Negrón, lived, this painting depicts El Barrio from the window of Neel’s apartment. The artist focuses just as much attention on the neighborhood’s inhabitants as she does its distinctive architecture. A peddler pushes a cart down the street, while a woman sits at a sewing machine in a nearby dwelling and a young family enters Neel’s own building. Neel lived in Spanish Harlem for twenty-four years, during which time she devoted the vast majority of her work to representing her adopted community’s Brown and Black residents, most of them lower and working class. As she did in all of her portraits, she set out to capture her sitters’ hardships while recognizing their individuality, dignity, and resilience.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
