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2020 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel Sahara Jane Lyon

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

VIVA LA MUJER:

INTERNATIONAL LEFTIST POLITICS AND PAN-HISPANISM IN THE WORK OF ALICE

NEEL

By

SAHARA LYON

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art History In partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded: Spring, 2020

Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Sahara Lyon defended on April 23, 2020.

Dr. Tenley Bick Thesis Director

Dr. Carla Della Gatta Outside Committee Member

Dr. Karen Bearor Committee Member

2 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Abstract

Art historians and critics such as Denise Bauer and Ann Temkin have written on American artist

Alice Neel’s (1900–1984) work through a feminist lens, focusing primarily on her portraits of women. In recent years, revisionist scholarship, especially by writer and theater critic Hilton Als in his exhibit Alice Neel, Uptown (David Zwirner Gallery, New York, 2017), has focused on

Neel’s attention to class, race, and representation in her portraits of her neighbors in Spanish

Harlem. However, these scholars have not adequately addressed Neel’s engagement with

Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism even though her early work poses formal and ideological connections to both movements. Her work’s attention to these movements constitutes an engagement with pan-Hispanism, a term coined in the late nineteenth century, partly in response to pan-Americanism. Neglecting the relationship between Neel’s work’s and international, partly pan-Hispanic art movements, poses an issue because the discourse discusses

Neel’s work in an isolationist American political context and a non-intersectional feminist lens.

However, her early work urges us to look at her involvement with international politics, such as anti-Franco sentiments, further highlighting her leftist political interests. In response to this gap in the discourse, this thesis examines the relationship in Neel’s early work to Spanish

Romanticism and Cuban modernism with special attention to global politics. This special attention highlights the leftist philosophies communicated through her work such as class struggles and racial equality. By closely examining Neel’s early work in relation to Cuban modernism and Spanish Romanticism, I shed light on new facets of Neel’s engagement with leftist politics while repositioning her work within an international artistic context. I argue that

Neel’s interest in historical Spanish Romanticism and contemporaneous Cuban modernism, both formally and ideologically, serves to enforce Neel’s interest in leftist politics and to position her

3 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel work within a global political context. More focus is placed on Neel’s paintings created between

1925 and 1960 in comparison to contemporaneous work by Cuban modernists Eduardo Abela and Wifredo Lam, among others, as well as the historical works of Spanish Romantic painter

Francisco Goya. This thesis finds that Neel’s work is deeply rooted in international leftist politics and an engagement with Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism through a pan-Hispanic art mode—that is, through specifically engaging with the leftist, anti-colonial, and anti-fascist sentiments of both movements.

Thesis Manuscript

In 1970, American art historian Cindy Nemser reached out to American artist Alice Neel

(1900–1984) to ask if Neel might provide a quote for Nemser’s upcoming article in Art in

America on the subject of women in art.1 Neel responded with a quote on discrimination in the art world that ended as follows: “History must be rewritten. Viva La Mujer.” Neel’s response aligned with her position within American feminist art history, but her use of the Spanish translation for “hooray for women” presented questions: Why did this American artist, who has no ancestry relating her to the Hispanic world, choose to end her quote with a Spanish phrase rooted in histories of Chicana and Latina feminist movements? This quote calls for attention to

Neel’s engagement with the Hispanic art world and leftist politics.

After her graduation from the Philadelphia School of Design in 1925, Neel moved to

Havana, Cuba with her husband and fellow artist Carlos Enríquez, who was from Havana.2

1 Getty: Recording Artists, episode 2, “Alice Neel: Viva La Mujer,” host Helen Molesworth, 2013, audio, 35:33, https://www.getty.edu/recordingartists/season-1/neel/. 2 Phoebe Hoban, Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010), 48–50.

4 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

While she lived there only until 1928, these formative years spent in Havana had a resounding and arguably enduring impact on Neel’s work, partly due to the trauma she experienced, as her first daughter was born and died in Havana.3 Neel’s exposure to political artwork through the

Cuban Vanguardia movement had a lasting impact on her portraits and broader work in figuration, as she paid close attention to intersections of class, race, and representation in her work, as in Beggars, Havana, Cuba (1926) (Fig. 1). Specifically, her portraits painted between

1925 and 1960 such as Elsie Rubin (1958) explored emotive color palettes, magical realism, and so-called Naïve Art, styles practiced by Cuban modernists such as Wifredo Lam (Fig. 2).4

Within the art historical discourse on Neel, however, this early period of Neel’s artistic life has been relatively neglected, with art historians choosing instead to highlight her later portraits of women such as Self-Portrait (1980) and Linda Nochlin and Daisy (1973) (Figs. 3–

4).5 In comparison to her earlier works, these portraits use brighter, more vivid color palettes as well as tighter brushstrokes. Feminist art historians were driven to focus on these later works of women because the portraits aligned well with second-wave feminism, a movement Neel supported.6 In addition, the portraits aligned with canonical revisions being made by many feminist art historians during the late twentieth century. However, in recent years, scholars such as Hilton Als and Jeremy Lewison have shifted the focus away from Neel’s portraits of— primarily—white women and towards her understudied portraits that engage more diverse representations of class, race, and community outside of whiteness, such as The Spanish Family

3 Henry R. Hope, “Alice Neel: Portraits of an Era,” Art Journal 38, no. 4 (1979): 275. 4 Luis Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba: Revised Edition (Austin: The University of Texas Press: Austin, 1994), 2. 5 Denise Bauer, “Alice Neel’s Female Nudes,” Art Journal 15, no. 2 (1994–1995): 21. 6 Hope, “Alice Neel: Portraits of an Era,” 280.

5 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

(1943) (Fig. 5).7 Art historians have noted Neel’s engagement with leftist politics in a U.S.-

American context, such as her sympathizing with American Communist ideals for the majority of her life, as suggested by her portrait of the leader of the party, Gus Hall (1981).8

Despite this revisionist scholarship, scholars have also largely neglected to note Neel’s engagement with leftist politics on a global scale, despite her work’s international engagement with politics.9 For example, art historian and critic Henry R. Hope interviewed Neel in 1979 for

Art Journal. In this interview, Hope asked Neel if she found inspiration in the work of any contemporary American artists. Neel responded, “I knew [contemporary artists’] work, but was more interested in Goya… Friends said my painting looked Spanish.”10 Here, Neel reflects on her interest in Spanish Romantic art, specifically because of her reference to Goya who, during the mid-twentieth century, was primarily studied as a Romantic artist.11 By failing to acknowledge Neel’s interest in both Cuban modernism and Spanish Romanticism, however, the current scholarship surrounding Neel has not yet sufficiently acknowledged key sources of

Neel’s politicized interests in class, race, and representation, study of which reveals an engagement with pan-Hispanism. The discourse has therefore yet to acknowledge her work’s

7 Hilton Als, Alice Neel, Uptown (New York: David Zwirner Gallery, 2017). 8 Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left. American Artist’s and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002); In the context of this paper, U.S.-American art does not refer to Native or Indigenous American art forms, although I am conscious of the colonial histories of American Imperialism and the trauma experienced by millions of Indigenous American peoples. Unfortunately, due to this colonial legacy, the term “American art” is often used to describe art created outside of an Indigenous context, but still on the continents of North and South America. 9 When using the word “global,” I am referring to an international interest outside of the United States of America, and a conscious engagement of international Leftist politics, such as those stemming from Cuba, revolutionaries in Francoist Spain, and sentiments developing during the Cold War. 10 Hope, “Alice Neel: Portraits of an Era,” 273. 11 Rose-Marie Hagen, Francisco Goya, 1746–1828 (Cologne: Taschen, 2003), 15.

6 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel interaction with global leftist politics within the context of mid-twentieth-century U.S.-American art.

Pan-Hispanism was defined as cooperation—socially, economically, and politically— amongst the Spanish-speaking world, as explained by J. Fred Rippy in his 1922 article “Pan-

Hispanic Propaganda in Hispanic America.”12 This historical article was written right as Neel began working—and only three years before her move to Havana. The timing of this essay demonstrates the relevancy of pan-Hispanism in academia during the early twentieth century.

The term was coined in the late nineteenth century, around the moment many countries in the

Americas gained independence from Spain; however, pan-Hispanism was understood differently in a Spanish context than a Latin context. In a Spanish context, Spain wanted to ensure the legacy of the “Spanish race,” aiming to create a lasting relationship with Spain’s former colonial states.13 By contrast, Cuba engaged with pan-Hispanism in an anti-colonial and anti-imperialistic way, as Cuba was still under Spanish colonial rule during the late nineteenth century. Pan-

Hispanism was coined, in part, to counter pan-Americanism, or the political cooperation between all countries constituting the American continents.14 Due to the colonial and imperialist histories between North and South America, Latin American countries such as Cuba wanted to create solidarity between South and Central American countries, countering colonial sentiments and countering pan-Americanism. For example, Cuba was occupied by the U.S. from 1898 to 1902, right after Cuba gained independence from Spain, potentially leading to a more urgent need to unite Latin America against the sentiments of pan-Americanism.

12 J. Fred Rippy, “Pan-Hispanic Propaganda in Hispanic America,” Political Science Quarterly 37, no. 3 (1922): 389. 13 Rippy, “Pan-Hispanic Propaganda in Hispanic America,” 400. 14 Rippy, “Pan-Hispanic Propaganda in Hispanic America,” 402.

7 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

My thesis reveals larger problems surrounding art historiography and limitations of

Americanist feminist art history during the mid-twentieth century. The sometimes limited scope presented by historical feminist Americanist art history has led to parts of Neel’s work, such as her leftist subjects, being ignored in exchange for a nationalist view of American feminist art.

The work of American feminist artists has historically often been analyzed solely through the scope of the experience of white, upper-middle-class American women, presenting an issue of non-intersectionality. For example, Natasha Pinterics’ 2001 “Riding the Feminist Waves: In with the Third?” in Canadian Woman Studies explains that third-wave feminism was thought to be a generational phenomenon of young women who opposed the rigid morals and white-centricity of second-wave feminism.15 However, Neel’s work clearly engages with experiences and politics on an international scale. Therefore, through my research of Neel’s work and her early biography, with special attention to her work’s engagement with Spanish Romanticism and

Cuban modernism, this thesis reframes Neel’s work in an international political context, demonstrating her lifelong dedication to leftist politics through her work.

I argue that Neel’s engagement with Cuban modernism and Spanish Romanticism merits an examination of her work through a global, Marxist lens, focusing on her depictions of class as informed through global politics. Neel’s depiction of diverse representations of class and race in her portraits is linked to her engagement with global leftist politics that championed the working class and racial equality. Neel’s engagement with leftist politics is inherently tied to her time spent in Cuba, where she was exposed to these philosophies through intellectual circles such as the Vanguardia. Neel’s engagement with leftist ideologies is also tied to her work’s interest in

15 Natasha Pinterics, “Riding the Feminist Waves: In with the Third?,” Canadian Woman Studies 21, no. 4 (2001): 15.

8 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Spanish Romanticism. Her interest is implied by her engagement with Goya’s work as a protest to the fascist politicization of Goya and Spanish culture during twentieth-century Francoist Spain

(1939–1975). Francisco Franco, hoping to spread a nationalist view of fascist Spain, shared controlled images such as Las Meninas (1656) by Diego Velázquez, that celebrated the golden age of the Spanish monarchy (Fig. 6). These images were shared at major international cultural platforms such as the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair.

Scholarship on Neel’s work has evolved since it emerged in the 1970s and looks distinctly different in a contemporary context. The scholarship surrounding Neel during the

1970s and 80s centered around the phenomenon of her being a successful female artist. For example, Hope’s 1979 hybrid article and interview with Neel displays interest in Neel as a woman artist during a time when women artists were gaining wide-spread appreciation.16 In addition, Neel was included in major surveys of women artists that were emerging during the late

1970s and early 1980s, such as art historian Elsa Honig Fine’s Women and Art: A History of

Women Painters and Sculptors from the Renaissance to the 20th Century (1978).17 Survey books such as Fine’s used a revisionist approach to include women artists in the canon of art history, bringing much-needed attention to historically neglected women artists. However, by looking at

Neel as first and foremost a woman artist, Neel was studied—for most of her career—with a focus on gender in her work. This study of Neel within the framework of feminist art history led to relative inattention within the discourse to other aspects of Neel’s work, such as her interest in politics and class.

16 Henry R. Hope, “Alice Neel: Portraits of an Era,” Art Journal 38, no. 4 (1979): 10–11. 17 Elsa Honig Fine, Women and Art: A History of Women Painters and Sculptors from the Renaissance to the 20th Century (1978): 125.

9 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

In the 1990s and early 2000s, scholarship on Neel proliferated when feminist art historians including Denise Bauer, Mary Garrard, and Ann Temkin took interest in Neel’s work.

These art historians focused primarily on Neel’s portraits of white women and they analyzed

Neel’s work through, largely, a feminist lens. In Ann Temkin’s essay for her exhibit on Neel at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2000, Temkin wrote, “According to [art historical] tradition, a woman’s place was in the painting…Neel’s decision to become an artist placed her on the other side of the easel and thereby removed her from ‘a normal woman’s life.’”18 For Temkin, by painting women as a woman artist, Neel offered a new, feminist perspective in the male- dominated art world. While this is true, Temkin overwhelmingly focused on Neel’s later works and her position as a female artist who painted herself and other women. This exhibit, in line with literature of the time, brought much-needed attention to the feminist themes within Neel’s work. However, the show did not focus on works by Neel that also explored other sites of identity, including more diverse representations of race and class, nor did the show address whiteness as a racial construction in Neel’s work. This lack of attention to Neel’s more diverse practice reflects how women artists were potentially framed in a limited scope, in which feminist art historians focused instead on women artists’ depiction of white women.

In the past ten years, changes in social art history and critical race and gender theory have resulted in modifications to the scholarship on Neel. Scholars such as Als and Lewison have recently examined Neel’s representation of people of color and people of varying socioeconomic positions. For example, in Als’ exhibit Alice Neel, Uptown from 2017, Als displayed Neel’s paintings of Spanish Harlem that featured her neighbors and the buildings that made up the

18 Ann Temkin, Alice Neel (Philadelphia: Harry N. Abrams Publisher, 2000), 5.

10 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

neighborhood.19 Neel stated in 1971 in her doctoral address at the Moore College of Art

(formerly the Philadelphia School of Design), “No matter what the rules are, when one is painting one creates one’s own world.”20 As Als argued in his exhibition of the artist’s works,

Neel painted what she saw and constructed he own world through her work. In contrast to the dominant scholarship surrounding Neel in past years, Als did not solely focus on Neel’s gender or her white women subjects; instead he centered Neel’s representations of racially and ethnically diverse community in her neighborhood of Spanish Harlem. Similarly, Lewison has argued that Neel’s portraits, due to their diversity, are able to unite people during times of divisive political activity.21 In recent years, a clear shift has occurred in the literature on Neel, and this shift in focus has also led to more interest in Neel’s engagement with leftist politics.

Another distinctive aspect of contemporary discourse on Neel is that art historians also view Neel through a somewhat critical lens. Neel lived in the Upper West Side for over fifty years, part of which was spent in Spanish Harlem.22 During her time living in the diverse neighborhood, she painted her neighbors, primarily people of color, as she saw them. After

World War I, Latino Americans—primarily those from Puerto Rico—made up over fifty percent of Spanish Harlem’s population.23 However, Neel, as a white, upper-class woman who chose to

19 Als, Alice Neel, Uptown. 20 Alice Neel, “Moore College of Art Doctoral Address, 1971,” in Alice Neel: The Woman and Her Work (Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1975), 80. 21 Jeremy Lewison, Curator Jeremy Lewison Talks About the Importance of Alice Neel’s Work, Directed by Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 2017; Hamburg, 2017, Video. 22 Tim Adams, “Meet the Neighbors: Alice Neel’s Harlem Portraits,” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/29/alice-neel- uptown-harlem-portraits-hilton-als-interview-victoria-miro. 23 Dana Schulz, “East Harlem: From Manhattan’s First Little Italy to El Barrio to a Neighborhood on the Cusp of Gentrification,” 6sqft, April 9, 2015, https://www.6sqft.com/east- harlem-from-manhattans-first-little-italy-to-el-barrio-to-a-neighborhood-on-the-cusp-of- gentrification/.

11 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel live in an economically, racially, and culturally diverse community and to paint people of color, holds the potential of essentialization and re-inscription of stereotypes in her work, as well as the danger of reducing a sitter’s identity to their race or ethnicity. Through a somewhat critical lens, scholars such as Als and Lewison have looked at Neel’s choices of subject.24 For example,

Neel’s Dominican Boys on 108th Street (1955) carries the potential to essentialize two boys through constructs of race and ethnicity (Fig. 7). In Als’ exhibition catalogue for Alice Neel,

Uptown and Lewison’s book Alice Neel: Painter of Modern Life both scholars have critically discussed Neel’s potential re-inscription of what we view today as archaic constructs of race through titling her works by the race and ethnicity of her sitters.25 Another example is Neel’s

Black Spanish-American Family (1950), which holds the same potential to essentialize its subjects (Fig. 8). However, despite Neel’s works in which she did title the paintings after the sitter’s race or ethnicity, there were also multiple paintings, primarily later in her career, of people of color in which she titled the works after the sitter’s name. For example, Stephen

Shepard (1978) depicts a Black man wearing bright, color-blocked clothes against a light blue and cream background (Fig. 9). The man is looking directly at the viewer and we know his name is Stephen Shepard, as the title indicates. Als’ writes that Shepard has respect for Neel as well as respect for himself, and his confidence is captured in the portrait.26 Neel painted people as she saw them, neighbor, friend, or stranger. Neel’s works do not cleanly fall into the categories of essentialization or non-essentialization; there is more nuance to Neel’s politics and, in turn, her portraits. Similarly, her work does not solely interact with American national politics; there are clear connections between Neel’s work and a more global set of political interests. Therefore,

24 Als, Alice Neel, Uptown, 13–15. 25 Jeremy Lewison, Alice Neel: Painter of Modern Life (New Haven: Yale University Press) 25. 26 Als, Alice Neel, Uptown, 129.

12 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel contemporary scholars such as Als and Lewison are not condemning Neel, but rather expanding the discourse on her work through these critical evaluations. Lewison and Als credit Neel for representing individuals of color with dignity and without sentimentality.27 The representation that she facilitated was largely unseen in the work of white artists of the time. For example, she engaged with and painted many champions of the Civil Rights Movement and the Harlem

Renaissance.28

Neel’s dedication to leftist politics and social justice prevailed throughout her lifetime.

Neel moved to Spanish Harlem in 1938, closely after the pivotal cultural and artistic movement of the Harlem Renaissance. She was also present in Harlem during the 1960s and 1970s for the

Black Arts Movement.29 She painted multiple major figures from both the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement including Harold Cruse, Horace R. Cayton, and Faith Ringgold.30

Her political involvement demonstrates her dedication to equality and social justice. Neel was present at multiple protests at the Whitney Museum of American Art against the museum’s lack of Black artists and female artists. She was also a proponent of the Art Workers Coalition, though never a member; she was photographed participating in various protests in which the Art

Workers Coalition participated.31 Neel’s consistent, long-term engagement with leftist politics can be traced to her time in Havana, where she was exposed to leftist political ideologies through

27 Lewison, Alice Neel: Painter of Modern Life, 27; Als, Alice Neel, Uptown, 14. 28 Adams, “Meet the Neighbors.” 29 Hettie Judah, “Alice Neel; Sixties Harlem and the ‘Unseen America’ Come to London,” INews, JPIMedia Publications, 2017, https://inews.co.uk/culture/arts/alice-neel-uptown-this- new-show-reveals-the-artists-unparalleled-commitment-to-painting-the-unseen-america-525406. 30 Lola Adesioye, “How Alice Neel’s Sharp, Compassionate Eye Painted Harlem,” The Atlantic, The Atlantic, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/alice-neel- uptown-review/522495/. 31 Victoria L. Valentine, “A Portrait of Faith Ringgold Painted by Alice Neel is Jordan Casteel’s Favorite Artwork,” Culture Type, August 27, 2019, http://www.culturetype.com.

13 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel the Vanguardia movement and other modernist intellectuals in Cuba. Therefore, there is an important relationship between Neel’s early work and the work of many Cuban modernists, as well as the Spanish Romantic painter Goya. During the mid-twentieth century, both movements were entwined with global perceptions of leftist politics. This relationship partly explains Neel’s interest in leftist politics associated with both Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism.

Neel’s early work, such as The Spanish Family, reflects both formal and iconographic elements consistent with Spanish Romanticism, displaying a consciousness of international art and politics. Francisco Goya was a Spanish artist associated with Enlightenment thought, empiricism, and then Romanticism in addition to his time spent as a court painter.32 His interest in empiricism, or observation-based reason, is supported by a book on comparative physiognomy from 1852, written by James W. Redfield. 33 Redfield cites certain works by Goya as engaging in physiognomy and empiricism in order to communicate the character of his subjects through their physical appearances.34 Written in 1852, this book is considered both outdated and racist, as physiognomy was used to reinforce the false notion that people of African descent were seen as lesser than those of European descent. However, Goya did subscribe to the ideologies of both empiricism and physiognomy, as highlighted by this study written not long after Goya’s death.

Most notably, Goya worked as a court painter for King Charles IV. His portrait of the king and his family has been extensively researched by scholars of Goya, such as Edward

Olszewski in his essay “Exorcising Goya’s ‘The Family of Charles IV’” from 1999.35 As a

32 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 21. 33 James W. Redfield, Comparative Physiognomy or Resemblances Between Men and Animals (New York: Clinton Hall, 1852), 282. 34 Redfield, Comparative Physiognomy or Resemblances Between Men and Animals, 282. 35 Edward J. Olszewski, “Exorcising Goya’s ‘The Family of Charles IV’,” Artibus et Historiae 20, no. 40 (1999): 169–171.

14 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Romantic painter later in his career, Goya experimented with emotive color palettes and subjects, as in Saturn Devouring His Son (1819–1823) (Fig. 10). Saturn Devouring His Son is considered part of Goya’s Black Paintings, a name given to fourteen dark and gruesome works produced at the end of his life.36 Prior to working with expressive, Romantic themes in his work, Goya also engaged politically with Enlightenment thought and often criticized the government, as in his portrait of Charles IV’s family (1800–1801) (Fig. 11). He depicted the royal family in an unflattering way, questioning the abilities of the monarchy, as explained by Olszewski.37 Despite

Goya’s time spent as a court painter, a larger amount of scholarship has been written on his engagement with Romanticism. For example, in works such as his famed Self-Portrait (1815), by depicting himself towards the end of his life, Goya evokes an emotion of sympathy within the viewer (Fig. 12). His characteristically loose brushstrokes are used to render his face as soft and wrinkled, displaying his wisdom gained through the years.38 Rich colors communicate the same sense of drama as his other later Romantic works, such as his Black Paintings; however, his self- portrait depicts lighter subject matter.39

Neel’s political ideologies that she maintained throughout her life reflected a consciousness of global and historical political philosophies. Goya was affiliated with the

Enlightenment, a major school of thought that was associated with Spanish culture during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Enlightenment emphasized reason and, particularly in

Spain, modernization of the government. Beliefs associated with the philosophy led those involved in the Enlightenment to produce a number of critical works that reflected on the out-of-

36 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 76–80. 37 Olszewski, “Exorcising Goya’s ‘The Family of Charles IV’,” 174. 38 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 60. 39 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 57.

15 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel date government. For example, Goya’s The Garroted Man (El agarrotado) (1778–1780) depicts a Spanish civilian being executed (Fig. 13). Scholarship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in relation to the work discusses that Goya may have been commenting on judicial abuse, aligning the work with his desire for governmental reform.40 In addition, Goya’s Los Caprichos (1797–

1798), his magnum opus of printmaking, contains prints that criticize the government.41

Empiricism helped to bolster and support the Enlightenment because it focused on using the senses in order to engage in observation-based reasoning.42 These two ideologies worked together and led to Spanish citizens becoming critical of archaic government and beliefs that were not based in reason.

Henry F. May’s book The Enlightenment in America, published in 1976, reflects a surge in scholarship on Enlightenment thought in America during the 1960s and 1970s. This newfound interest in American political philosophies and the Enlightenment was started, in part, in 1960 when American historian Daniel J. Boorstin dismissed America’s involvement in the

Enlightenment.43 After being published, the book received a number of skeptical reviews from more conservative writer, such as conservative politician Esmond Wright.44 There was dissent amongst more conservative writers about aspects of the revolutionary Enlightenment that included government reform, class equality, and social reform. Within the context of the

40 “The Garroted Man,” The Met, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/333818. 41 Andrew Schulz, “Satirizing the Senses: The Representation of Perception in Goya’s Los Caprichos,” Art History 23, no. 2 (2000): 153–155. 42 Schulz, “Satirizing the Senses,” 157. 43 John M. Dixon, “Henry F. May and the Revival of the American Enlightenment: Problems and Possibilities for Intellectual and Social History,” The William and Mary Quarterly 71, no. 2 (2014): 255. 44 Esmond Wright, “Review of The Enlightenment in America by Henry May,” The English Historical Review 93, no. 369 (1978): 919.

16 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

American New Left in the 1960s, then, Neel’s engagement with Goya and Romantic Spanish painting suggests that Neel was in line with leftist discourse on Enlightenment thought. In addition, empiricism, as the belief that knowledge can only be gained through observation-based reason, directly relates to the genre of portraiture. While expressionist portraiture does not always depict sitters in unidealized form, art historians such as Bauer and Temkin have long written on Neel’s ability to capture her sitters vulnerably, depicting her subjects without sentimentality.45

In Neel’s paintings during her early career, especially her work created between 1925 and

1960, the influence of dark, Spanish Romanticism is apparent. For example, in T. B. Harlem from 1940, dark, saturated earth tones create an ominous, dreary atmosphere within the painting

(Fig. 14). Neel used primarily cool colors of a similar tone in order to paint the work, creating an unsettling scene. In T. B. Harlem, the subject is Carlos Negrón, the 24-year-old brother of Neel’s boyfriend at the time, José Santiago. In the painting, he takes up the majority of the picture plane and is ill with tuberculosis, as suggested by the title.46 Neel engaged with similar formal techniques that Goya utilized when creating his later paintings towards the end of his life. For example, Goya’s aforementioned Self-Portrait uses a similar, dark, saturated color palette all of the same tone. In addition, Goya’s own face takes up the majority of the composition. Similarly,

Negrón takes up the majority of the composition in T.B. Harlem. Iconographically, the subject of a dying, visibly sick individual relates to the themes expressed by Goya’s Black Paintings such as Saturn Devouring his Son, further connecting Neel’s work to that of Goya. When looking

45 Denise Bauer, “Alice Neel’s Feminist and Leftist Portraits of Women,” Feminist Studies 28, no. 2 (2002): 375–377. 46 “T.B. Harlem,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2020, https://nmwa.org/works/tb-harlem.

17 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel back at Neel’s early works, we are reminded of her interview with Hope: Her work has clear formal and ideological links to Spanish Romanticism.

Neel’s work suggests a consciousness of how Goya’s work was being perceived by the worldwide art community during the mid-twentieth century, especially during Francoist Spain.

The New York World’s Fair from 1964 to 1965 included multiple paintings by Goya and many other influential Spanish artists such as Diego Velázquez, El Greco, and Pablo Picasso.47 Spain was one of two European nations with pavilions at the fair.48 Franco, as a fascist dictator, was very conscious of controlling the narrative surrounding Spain and Spanish culture. Therefore, the country presented works that could cultivate a nationalist narrative of cultural history.49 Specific works by Goya were exhibited, such as his Naked Maja (1797–1800) and Clothed Maja (1800–

1807) (Figs. 15–16).50 Maja is the feminine of majo, a word used to describe those of the lower class in Spain, who were characterized by wearing elaborate clothes; the elaborate dress was also adapted by aristocratic women.51 In José Luis Venegas’ book The Sublime South: Andalusia,

Orientalism, and the Making of Modern Spain, he explains that Franco’s regime and the Falange, the Spanish fascist party, emphasized the old monarchs of Spain’s past.52 In a monarchical state, class divisions are especially pronounced. Goya’s Majas are thought to depict an upper-class woman, despite the title. The image suggests that Francoist cultural policies involved circulating

47 Julie Nicoletta, “Art Out of Place: International Art Exhibits at the New York World’s Fair of 1964-1965,” SIAS Faculty Publications (2010): 506. 48 Nicoletta, “Art Out of Place,” 508.; A major reason for the lack of international involvement was the Cold War, and the international political tensions between the United States and Russia. Many countries were concerned about entering the fair and having to show allegiance to a certain country, entering a war they did not want to partake in. 49 José Luis Venegas, The Sublime South: Andalusia, Orientalism, and the Making of Modern Spain (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 95. 50 Hilmi Toros, “Some of the World Missing at Fair,” Fort Lauderdale News (1964): 11A. 51 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 95. 52 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 156.

18 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel images that acted as examples for the Spanish public as well as fear-mongering techniques.

Additionally, Goya, Velázquez, and El Greco were all made to represent the golden ages of

Spain when monarchies ruled, reinforcing a nationalist, fascist view of Spain. Francoist Spain had an almost obsessive interest in Spanish nationalism and the censoring of art forms that criticized the government.53 Franco was also invested in nacionalcatolicismo, or the near militaristic control that the Catholic church had over most aspects of public and private life.54

Therefore, Goya’s more Catholic works in which witchcraft was criticized would have sent the correct nationalist, pro-Catholic message that Franco was attempting to convey about Spain.

However, Goya’s later, grotesque, Romantic works in which gruesome scenes of violence were depicted would not have been favored by Franco, as they may have sent an opposite, potentially critical message against Francoist Spain.

Franco’s regime chose very specific, early works by Goya to use as pro-fascist propaganda due to Goya’s history in relation to the Spanish Civil War. The work exhibited at

The 1937 Paris World’s Fair in the Spanish pavilion displayed the significance that Goya’s work had for the Republican, left-leaning loyalists fighting the Nationalists during the Civil War.55

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) was first exhibited at the Paris World’s Fair during the Spanish

Civil War, and the influence that Goya’s work had on Picasso’s was widely discussed (Fig. 17).

Goya reinvented the idea of history painting and paintings depicting war, with his work such as

The Third of May 1808 (1814) (Fig. 18). The painting depicts Spanish civilians being executed by royal military forces. In 1807, Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte was made king of Spain

53 Venegas, The Sublime South, 120. 54 Venegas, The Sublime South, 125. 55 Werner Hofmann, “Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in its Historical Context,” Artibus et Historiae 4, no. 7 (1983): 147.

19 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel after taking advantage of the weak ruling king of Spain, Charles IV, under the ruse of seizing joint control of Portugal.56 On May 2, 1808, an uprising occurred in which Spanish civilians rebelled against the oppressive French rulers put in charge of their government. The Third of

May depicts those Spanish civilians arrested the day before being executed by the royal military.

This painting, an unprecedented and unconventional depiction of a battle, demonstrates the horrors of war: civilian casualties and oppressive governments. This revolutionary work by Goya and his use of the grotesque in his depiction of war as a political critique was utilized by Picasso in his interpretation of a modern history painting in Guernica.57 Goya’s later works in which he was critical of the government served as inspiration for the Republican loyalists during the

Spanish civil war, and Franco’s use of Goya’s work as fascist propaganda likely upset many leftists on a national and international scale. Ideologically, Neel aligned with these anti-war sentiments, as stated in her Moore College commencement speech when she denounced the

Vietnam War.58 Neel, as a leftist, would have likely disagreed with the fascist politicization of

Goya’s work.

Despite Spain being under the control of a fascist dictator, for the art world, most mid- twentieth century Spanish art represented a resistance to archaic government and fascist, militaristic ideals. For example, Picasso’s Guernica, in addition to its exhibition at the 1937 Paris

World’s Fair, acted as the site of major political protest in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically in relation to the Vietnam War. On March 11th, 1970, a pamphlet from the Art Workers’ Coalition was published that summarized the 265 letters that had been sent to Pablo Picasso by various

56 Philip Shaw, “Abjection Sustained: Goya, the Chapman Brothers, and the Disasters of War,” Art History 26, no. 4 (2004): 485. 57 Hofmann, “Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in its Historical Context,” 150. 58 Neel, “Moore College of Art Doctoral Address, 1971,” 80.

20 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

artists and art workers, urging him to remove Guernica from the Museum of Modern Art.59 The pamphlet explained that Guernica, as a major protest of Franco’s ordered bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, resulting in mass civilian causalities, should no longer be held in a country that was committing similarly heinous war crimes against the Vietnamese people. The pamphlet was signed by over 250 artists and art workers, demonstrating that parts of the art world at that time engaged with most contemporary Spanish art as anti-fascist. Picasso refused to return Guernica to Spain until Spain instilled a democratic form of government, demonstrating that he thought America to be an anti-fascist, democratic country.

By engaging with Goya’s later, more grotesque work, Neel’s work indirectly functioned to critique fascism and Franco. Goya’s work served as inspiration for Spanish artists and loyalists during the Spanish Civil War.60 However, Goya’s work was being used by Franco to promote a fascist, totalitarian Spanish state. Ironically, Goya was, later in his life, critical of monarchical Spain, and championed a more enlightened, people-driven form of government.61

Cultural policy under Franco selectively positioned Goya’s early court paintings and Catholic work to promote a classical, traditional, and nationalist version of fascist Spain. Therefore,

Neel’s work and her participation in protests held by the Art Workers’ Coalition suggests that her subsequent reference to her engagement with Goya was in regard to the politicization of

Spanish art that, as in Picasso’s Guernica, sought to critique oppressive governance. However, she publicly acknowledged her interest in Goya’s work in 1979, after the end of Franco’s rule, potentially due to pressures put in place by McCarthyism and Cold War, anti-Communist

59 Art Workers’ Coalition, “A petition from the Art Workers’ Coalition to remove Guernica from the galleries of the museum,” 1970. 60 May, The Enlightenment in America, 225–230. 61 Hagen, Francisco Goya, 76–80.

21 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel politics.62 Neel’s work implies that, for her specifically, Goya and Spanish art represent long histories of governmental resistance. By consciously working with the art of Goya, Neel’s work engaged with conversations of global leftist politics, and her work was partly critiquing the fascist narrative Francoist Spain had been releasing.

Neel lived in New York during the 1964–65 World’s Fair, and she likely saw the work within the Spanish Pavilion, prior to her stating Goya’s influence on her work in her interview with Hope. In regard to Goya’s influence on Neel’s work, we should examine his dark, emotive color palettes, his loose brushstrokes, his close-up compositions, and his politics, both through his late painting in a style against the academy, and his works reinvention of the genre of wartime history painting. Neel’s work engaged with Goya’s later works—that engaged with gruesome imagery— that were largely ignored by the Franco regime, criticizing Francoist political and cultural propaganda. Neel, as a leftist who engaged with the Communist party, vehemently opposed the ideals of Franco-ruled Spain. Neel was consciously engaging with the somewhat leftist politics upheld by Goya and his works. Not long before Neel’s reference to characterizations of her work as Spanish in appearance, Goya’s work had been used by Spain’s fascist party as nationalist propaganda. Therefore, by engaging Goya’s work that opposed

Franco’s ideals, Neel’s work participated in artistic activism against global fascism. Neel’s work communicated these anti-fascist, international leftist political sentiments before she publicly acknowledged them in relation to Spain and Goya. In 1979, after the end of Franco’s rule and

62 McCarthyism refers to the period in U.S. history from the 1940s to the late 1950s when high profile celebrities, artists, and politicians were being accused of treason and Communist sympathy without proper evidence put against them. The term refers to Senator Joseph McCarthy.

22 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel within the last ten years of the Cold War, Neel likely felt less governmental hostility towards her leftist beliefs and was able to voice her interests in Spain, Goya, and international leftist art.

Neel’s expressionistic portraiture is also reminiscent of Goya’s later resistance to conventions of artistic practice. Romanticism represented a breaking away from the traditional artistic academy and embrace of a new anti-classical form of art-making. Neel’s style and subject of painting was less celebrated during her early life, as Neel turned to expressionist figure painting during a time when abstraction was becoming increasingly dominant as modernist form.

Artists such as Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock gaining recognition in the early and mid- twentieth century global artistic discourse.63 Neel’s resistance to tradition mirrors a history within art that is reflected within Goya and is somewhat politicized. This resistance is later reflected in the work of the Cuban modernists working as part of the Vanguardia.

Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism both influenced Neel’s work. Both constituted a formal and political distancing from the traditional. Furthermore, recent curatorial scholarship has argued that Surrealism was partly inspired by Spanish Romanticism.64

Surrealism was an artistic movement and style explored in depth by Cuban modernists of the

Vanguardia. Surrealism explored the underlying subconscious as well as the irrational juxtaposition of figures and forms.65 The Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany held an exhibition entitled Dark Romanticism. From Goya to Max Ernst (2013), about the art historical transition from Spanish Romanticism to Surrealism, explaining how one influenced the other.66

63 Patricia Hills, Alice Neel (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983), 11–13. 64 Felix Krämer, Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst (New York: Art Pub Incorporated, 2012). 65 “Dark Romanticism. From Goya to Max Ernst,” Art History News, Blogger, 2013, http://arthistorynewsreport.blogspot.com/2013/12/dark-romanticism-from-goya-to-max- ernst.html. 66 “Dark Romanticism. From Goya to Max Ernst,” 2013.

23 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Neel was introduced to Surrealism during her time in Havana, as Surrealism was engaged by

Cuban modernists, as well as through her exposure to modernist art. This exposure can be seen in

Neel’s work.

Neel’s exposure to the Vanguardia in Havana and its impact on her work displayed a consciousness of international art movements and politics, leading us to reframe her work in the context of globalist art history. In Cuba, writers, musicians, academics, and artists were engaging with themes of Marxism, anti-colonialism, and new modernist art movements.67 Artists such as

Wifredo Lam and Carlos Enríquez were experimenting with modernist movements such as

Surrealism and Cubism and combining them with Indigenous art practices such as magical realism. In addition, Cuban modernists were engaging with political theories of Marxism and anti-colonialism, as explained by art historian and critic José Gómez-Sicre in his work Art of

Cuba in Exile (1987).68 These formal and iconographic elements—such as Neel’s depiction of her laborer neighbors—of Cuban modernism were engaged by Neel during her time spent in

Havana. For example, Neel’s Kenneth Fearing (1935) reflects her interest in both Latin

American and Spanish artwork (Fig. 19). In Kenneth Fearing, Neel used dark, moody, highly saturated colors to render poet Kenneth Fearing in a surreal landscape. These strategies demonstrate an engagement with both magical realism and Surrealism. Magical realism is an artistic and literary genre associated with Latin American arts and culture. It involves imposing magical, surreal elements upon realistic settings of the modern world.69 In Neel’s portrait,

Fearing is larger than life, painted against the background of New York City at night. His arms rest on a street, demonstrating his size by placing him amongst smaller people walking on the

67 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 45. 68 José Gómez-Sicre, Art of Cuba in Exile (Miami, Fl.: Ediciones Universal, 1987). 69 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 45.

24 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel street. A tiny skeleton pours blood from a cavity in Fearing’s chest. A distinct characteristic of magical realism, separate from Surrealism, is the real-world setting of the work.70 Fearing is rendered in New York with the Sixth Avenue El Train behind him; a real-world background contrasts with the fantastical elements in the foreground. This dark, romantic landscape engages with Cuban magical realism and the sometimes gruesome Romanticism of Spain.71 Art Historian

Manuel Durán has discussed the tendency for Spanish Romanticism to lean towards the grotesque, as in Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Neel used the same dark, brooding, and saturated color palette in Kenneth Fearing as Goya did in Saturn Devouring His Son.

Neel’s time in Havana played a formative role in the development of her style as an artist and partly introduced her to political art.72 Neel became involved with the new avant-garde movement in Cuba, exhibiting in two art shows with local modernists during her time in Cuba.73

In 1927, Neel exhibited with Enríquez at the XII Salón de Bellas Artes. There, Neel exhibited one of her earliest known works, Carlos Enríquez from 1926 in which she rendered her husband in loose, expressionist brushstrokes and dark, saturated tones (Fig. 20).74 The art of both Neel and Enríquez was well received by critics. In Paquena Gaceta, a local newspaper, critic Marti

Casanovas praised the work of both Neel and Enríquez.75 Casanovas stated: “Alice Neel and

Carlos Enríquez set the tone of the Salon, and we could almost say the Salon has been made for them.”76 In the same year, both artists exhibited at the Exposición de Arte Nuevo in 1927, an

70 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 60. 71 Manuel Durán, “Love at First Sight: Spanish Surrealism Reconsidered,” MLN 84, no. 2 (1969): 330. 72 Hoban, Alice Neel, 49. 73 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 2. 74 Hoban, Alice Neel, 49. 75 Marti Casanovas, Paqueta Gaceta article, 1927. 76 Casanovas, Paqueta Gaceta article, 1927.

25 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel avant-garde exhibit sponsored by the Revista de Avance, the group that led the introduction of modernism in Cuba.77 These exhibits were likely pivotal in Neel’s career as they were the first official exhibitions of her work, and they both received immense praise. Exhibiting in Cuba with emerging modernists further linked Neel to modernist trajectories in Cuba and Latin America.

The political ideologies that Neel continued to maintain in the United States display the impact that her time in Havana had on her artistic and political interests. She began working for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in 1933, a precedent to the Works Progress

Administration established in 1935.78 Neel’s work engages with leftist politics on a global scale, specifically Cuban modernism in both a formal and iconographic context. In her book Alice

Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, Phoebe Hoban discusses that Cuban modernism showed Neel that art could engage with political issues.79 For example, Neel was introduced to a realm of politically engaged and class-conscious artwork after seeing work by Amelia Peláez, Antonio

Gattorno, and other artists who celebrated Cuba’s cultural history while denouncing colonialism and Eurocentrism. I suggest that Neel’s exposure to Cuban art movements shaped her artistic style as well as her political beliefs.

Similarly, by engaging Surrealism and magical realism, Neel’s work, in part, displayed a consciousness of Cuban modernists such as Lam. Lam’s work, Composition 1, 1930 (1930) depicts a surreal dreamscape in which the same dark, emotive, cool color palette as Kenneth

Fearing is used (Fig. 21). Lam depicted a town on the edge of a body of water, with a large moon looming over the horizon. Faceless figures are dotted throughout the composition, creating a sense of confusion. A blond woman in the foreground throws her head back, appearing

77 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 2. 78 Hoban, Alice Neel, 49. 79 Hoban, Alice Neel, 172.

26 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel unaware of the faceless figures watching her. The image is very surreal, with strange objects juxtaposed against one another, creating an atmosphere of mystery and confusion. The nighttime setting gives the painting an oneiric quality, further reinforcing the surreal qualities of the landscape. Lam also explored Cubism in his painting, as in the blocky, geometric buildings and architecture. While Neel’s work lacks the Cubist abstraction present in Cuban modernism, her early work does engage with Surrealism, magical realism, and the unconscious, as in the dream- like setting of Kenneth Fearing. Curator Elizabeth T. Goizueta has discussed how Cuban modernism was a multi-disciplinary movement, with writers, poets, artists, and other intellectuals coming together to develop a style characteristic of Cuban modernism.80 Lam in particular had various connections to poets, writers, and other artists, influencing how and what he painted.81 Through her paintings of other artists, poets, critics, and intellectuals, Neel similarly engaged with this model of Cuban modernism and the model of international modernist artistic contexts and pan-Hispanism.

In addition to her time spent in Havana, Neel was exposed to Cuban modernism even after she returned to New York. In 1944, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibit entitled Modern Cuban Painters, curated by art historian and critic José Gómez-Sicre in collaboration with members of the museum’s staff.82 This exhibition contained work from members of the Vanguardia group including Enríquez and Peláez and discussed how these artists desired to break away from the one academic art school in the country, the Academy of San

Alejandro. Gómez-Sicre called the Academy of San Alejandro, “a colonial echo of a Spanish

80 Susan Delson, “In Conversation: Curator Elizabeth Goizueta on Wilfredo Lam: Imagining New Worlds,” Cuban Art News, Howard Farber, 2014, https://cubanartnews.org/2014/08/26/in- conversation-curator-elizabeth-goizueta-on-wifredo-lam-imagining-new-worlds/. 81 Delson, “In Conversation: Curator Elizabeth Goizueta on Wilfredo Lam.” 82 “Modern Cuban Painters,” Museum of Modern Art Bulletin 11, no. 5 (1944): 2.

27 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel echo of the moribund Academy of Rome.”83 The exhibit was unprecedented in nature and offered a largescale but case-specific examination of Latin American art. During the twentieth century, Cuban art and culture was highly politicized and American exhibitions framed Cuban art in opposition to Communism. However, according to Eva Cockcroft’s article “Abstract

Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” in a 1974 issue of Artforum, the MoMA exhibition of

Cuban modernism seemed to precede the politicized exhibits of Latin American art in the United

States during the Cold War. The Cold War did not technically begin until 1949 and the October

Crisis, also known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, was not until 1962.84 Cockcroft elaborates that, during the Cold War, staff from the Inter-American Affairs offices were transferred to work at the Museum of Modern Art, and the museum made an effort to collect contemporary and modern works of American art, proving that U.S.-American culture was not a by-product of European culture.85 Art historian Andrea Giunta in her 2001 book Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and

Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties has explained that during the 1960s, exhibitions of Latin

American art were circulated at an unprecedented rate on an international scale.86 Giunta elaborates that on September 2, 1960, Fidel Castro read the “First Declaration of Havana” in which Castro declared Cuba a territory free from America.87 After this declaration, Cold War tensions were especially high. During the Cold War, exhibits dedicated to Cuban art in an international context were framed to bolster capitalism over Communism and to prohibit sympathies with the country; by contrast, Modern Cuban Painters preceded the anti-Communist,

83 “Modern Cuban Painters,” 13. 84 Eva Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” Artforum 15, no. 10 (1974): 11–13. 85 Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” 84. 86 Andrea Giunta, Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties, trans. Peter Kahn (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007), 190. 87 Giunta, Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics, 192.

28 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel anti-Cuban sentiments of the Cold War. This exhibit displays the international interest in Cuban modernism during the early and mid-twentieth century, as well as the multiple different outlets in which Neel was exposed to the work of Cuban modernists.

Neel’s engagement with Cuban modernism and Spanish Romanticism can also be seen in

Sam and Richard (1940) through the lack of modeling and the dark shading (Fig. 22). Sam and

Richard depicts a man holding a baby. Crowded, intersecting, curving lines make up the background. The subjects in the painting are flattened against the canvas, and little modeling is used to render the figures. Both the man and baby are in profile. The work uses dark, blended earth-tones; shading around the man’s eyes and the baby’s mouth make parts of the subjects’ faces more difficult to discern. In combination with the dark colors, the furrowed brow of the baby, and the man’s extremely downturned mouth give the work a mood of anxiety and discomfort. The chaotic lines tangled in the background add to the confusion within the piece.

Formally, Neel’s work engaged with styles exposed to her during her time in Havana.

Eduardo Abela, a prominent Cuban modernist who exhibited with Neel during her time in

Havana, painted with a flatness similar to that engaged by Neel in her work. Abela’s Guajiros

(Peasants; 1938), for example, depicts a group of peasants (Fig. 23). Abela used line and limited modeling to paint some of the peasants in profile. The clear outline of the man sitting in the chair in the foreground of the painting is recalled in Neel’s later rendering of the man and baby in Sam and Richard. The facial features of the subjects are rendered in thick black lines, creating modernist, flattened versions of the figures. This flattening pertains to so-called Naïve art, a style characterized by limited modeling and anti-classical forms that were engaged by many modernists in order to break away from traditional academic styles of art that had favored

29 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

European artists.88 Naïve art was explored by many modernists on an international level during the early twentieth century, and many Cuban modernists adapted this style, along with Cubism,

Surrealism, and Indigenous cultural forms.89 Neel would have been exposed to the flattening of subjects and Naïve art through European as well as Cuban modernism; however, her choice of subject and her engagement with leftist politics, such as her depiction of poets like Kenneth

Fearing and key civil rights figures like Horace R. Cayton, reflect an interest in Cuban modernism more so than European modernism. Cuban modernists were known to paint fellow members of the Vanguardia and those within leftist intellectual circles. Neel was directly exposed to these cooperative engagements.90 Cuban modernism was more concerned with combining elements of European modernism with elements of Indigenous art, such as magical realism. Cuban modernists also engaged with leftist politics and social ideologies, all elements that Neel was interested in and emulated in her early artwork.

Neel’s sitters reflect a consciousness of Cuban modernism and the artistic ideologies practiced by Cuban artists during the early twentieth century. The subject matter of everyday people—in Sam and Richard, a man and baby—recalls the representation found in depictions of peasants in the work of Cuban modernists. Respectfully rendering everyday workers and peasants, as in Abela’s Guajiros and many of Neel’s portraits of everyday neighbors, explores constructions of class. In Sam and Richard, the man is wearing a suit, calling on corporate life.

However, the viewer does not see him working; we see him with his baby, displaying a different kind of stress and anxiety—one less associated with class or capitalism. This depiction of everyday people aligns Neel with histories of Cuban modernism, as seen in Abela’s Guajiros.

88 Hoban, Alice Neel, 75. 89 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 36. 90 Delson, “In Conversation: Curator Elizabeth Goizueta on Wilfredo Lam.”

30 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

In the past, art historians have not adequately addressed Neel’s political involvement with

Marxism and Communism and the role that Cuban culture played in her life. Revisionist literature on Neel is in line with recent, large-scale changes occurring within Americanist art history. By positioning Neel’s work within a global context, my thesis is in line with revisionist literature on Neel and changes to Americanist art history as a whole. By focusing on politics that entrench Neel within histories of class consciousness and racial justice through both Spanish

Romanticism and Cuban modernism, the focus of her work shifts from her later works of white men and women to her early works of her neighbors of color, her constructions of whiteness, and her work inspired by more global movements.

To that end, scholars, such as Als, have recently made note of Neel’s involvement with more diverse American art movements such as the Black Arts Movement (BAM) and the Harlem

Renaissance, highlighting how her work was shaped through these movements. Neel’s portraits of key Black artists and activists, as well as her living in Spanish Harlem, a neighborhood made up predominantly of minority communities such as Latino Americans, predominantly Puerto

Rican American, and African Americans, display Neel’s and her work’s long-term interest in

American politics, civil rights, and diverse U.S.-American art movements. Despite the international influence of movements such as BAM and the Harlem Renaissance, Neel’s work has not been adequately analyzed through global perspectives. Major aspects of Neel’s work, her life, and her political involvement have not been adequately written on, leading to major gaps in the discourse surrounding Neel.

In addition to Cuban modernism, Neel’s work displays a consciousness of Mexican artist

Diego Rivera, further displaying her engagement with pan-Hispanism, and enforcing our need to examine Neel’s work in relation to worldwide politics. Cuban people’s engagement with pan-

31 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Hispanism began whilst still under Spanish colonial rule. Due to Spain’s colonial legacy in Latin

America, many Hispanic countries, including Cuba, engaged with pan-Hispanism in a predominantly Latin American context, denouncing European and American colonialism and imperialism.91 Some Latin American countries, such as Cuba and Mexico, worked cooperatively to develop certain anti-colonial, leftist, and artistic ideologies in order to create a more united

Latin America.92 By engaging with Rivera’s work alongside Cuban modernism, Neel was partaking in this history of pan-Hispanism and the cultural exchange of ideologies throughout certain parts of Latin America. Known for his large-scale murals depicting pre-colonial,

Indigenous Mexicans, Rivera was influenced by the work of Neel’s first husband, Carlos

Enríquez (though the Cuban artist did not reach recognition outside of Latin America until the

1940s).93 A major exhibition of Rivera’s frescoes, oil paintings, and drawings by Rivera were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1932, and then traveled to the

Philadelphia Museum of Art immediately thereafter.94 Therefore, Neel would have been exposed to these works by Rivera due to her geographical ties to both New York City and Philadelphia.

Rivera, as an internationally renowned Latin American modernist, was likely an inspiration for

Neel’s style and content, as perhaps in her painting Portrait of John with Hat (1935) (Fig. 24).

Neel’s Portrait of John with Hat has formal qualities similar to the work of Rivera, displaying a larger connection between Neel’s art and Mexican modernism, further supporting my examination of Neel’s paintings outside of a predominantly national and non-intersectional

American art historical context. Rivera’s Baile en Tehuantepec (1928) displays three male and

91 Rippy, “Pan-Hispanic Propaganda in Hispanic America,” 391. 92 Rippy, “Pan-Hispanic Propaganda in Hispanic America,” 400. 93 Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, 36.; Philip N. Youtz, “Diego Rivera,” Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum 27, no. 146 (1932): 101. 94 Youtz, “Diego Rivera,” 101.

32 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel three female figures in profile (Fig. 25). The modeling of the figures is very similar between the two paintings. Line is used to thickly and clearly render the subjects’ jaws, noses, eyes, and lips in both paintings. Both works lack naturalistic modeling, rendering the subjects as flattened on the canvas. The paintings by Neel and Rivera possess qualities that were affiliated with so-called

Naïve art, sharing a resistance to classically trained, academic salon painting.

Neel’s lifelong dedication to leftist politics is reflected in her work and the subjects that she chose to paint. Neel’s Pat Whalen (1935) depicts the Communist activist, staring pensively to the left, off of the canvas (Fig. 26). This painting is one of the many works Neel completed during her time working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great

Depression.95 Both Whalen and Neel mingled in “bohemian” circles and likely met each other during a Communist meeting with the International Workers of the World.96 In his 2002 book

Artists on the Left. American Artists and the Communist Movement, Andrew Hemingway writes that, for Neel, the Communist activists that she painted were seen as heroes in her (and other

Communists’) eyes.97 The sharp, pensive way in which Neel rendered Whalen—with large, outlined, graphic hands, and a weathered face—presents him as a seasoned and dignified intellectual, and also a laborer, dedicated to his work as a Communist activist. Neel’s interest in leftist politics persisted throughout her life, and she sympathized with Communist ideals such as social justice; she shared her personal wealth throughout her life as well.

My thesis concludes that Neel engaged with Cuban modernism in her early career as a source of inspiration for her work. In addition, Neel also engaged with Spanish Romantic

95 Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left. American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002) 65–68. 96 Hemingway, Artists on the Left, 69. 97 Hemingway, Artists on the Left, 68.

33 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel painting through formal and ideological qualities. Both Cuban modernism and Spanish

Romanticism were highly politicized artistic movements, especially during the mid-twentieth century due to the Cold War and Francoist Spain. Neel was affiliated with the Communist party and leftist politics during her lifetime.98 During the time of Neel’s involvement with the

Communist party, their core beliefs included democratic centralism, raised minimum wage, increased taxing of the wealthy, and a large central government with prosperous government social programs such as welfare and Social Security. Neel was exposed to Marxism during her time in Havana due to emerging social ideologies and avant-gardists in Cuba who led the shift towards modernism. These figures primarily included artists such as Carlos Enríquez, Eduardo

Abela, Víctor Manuel García, and Rafael Blanco, all of whom exhibited with the Modernists at the Exposición de Arte Nuevo.99 Neel’s history of involvement with programs such as Art

Workers Coalition and her portraits of people involved in leftist politics, such as her portrait of

Gus Hall, former leader of the American Communist Party, display her long-term affiliation with the left and her dedication to social issues. This interest in politics, social issues, and art all align with Neel’s interest in both Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism. In addition, her engagement of both movements framed Pan-Hispanism to potentially include Spanish art, such as Goya’s later works, that were critical of war, empire, and oppressive governments.

I conclude that Neel’s work reflects a long-term political and artistic engagement with both Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism. Her reference to “Spanish art” in the interview she conducted with Hope supports this conclusion as do formal and iconographic elements of her early works. Neel’s work suggests that she engaged with the social and formal

98 Bauer, “Alice Neel’s Female Nudes,” 21. 99 Lewison, Alice Neel, 15–17.

34 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel qualities of Goya’s work due to her interest in leftist politics. Goya’s work had international political implications associated with Francoist Spain during the twentieth century. Her work critically engages with the fascist narrative coming out of Francoist Spain, in which Goya’s work was being wrongly used to promote a monarchical, golden era of Spanish civilization. Through looking at works such as Sam and Richard by Neel, the connection to Spanish Romanticism is apparent both formally and through iconographic analysis.

The effect that occurs when Neel’s work is associated with that of Goya and Cuban modernism is that Neel’s work becomes part of a larger discourse regarding pan-Hispanic art history, leftist politics, and the international art world. Neel’s time spent creating and exhibiting art in Havana link her work to Cuba and Cuban modernism. Neel’s work deals with issues of race, class, gender identity, and politics through depicting her sitters as she saw them and with dignity. For example, Neel’s Two Girls, Spanish Harlem (1959) displays how Neel’s work presents intersections between gender, race, and class (Fig. 27). The two girls sit in dresses; the girl on the right has her head in her hands, potentially tired from sitting for Neel for an extensive period of time. The girls, despite their young age, meet the viewer’s gaze, staring wide-eyed.

Looking at this portrait, Neel’s earlier statement, “Viva la mujer” is called to mind. By viewing

Neel’s work in relation to Goya and Cuban modernism, we reframe her paintings from their original position within studies of American art in a national context, to a more internationally engaged position within conversations on global politics and American art in an internationalized context. This reframing is important because it causes us to reevaluate how we might view multiple artists within American art history and the potentially limited lens of analysis that results from framing artists within second-wave feminist art history on American art.

35 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

This thesis contributes to revisionist literature on Neel, especially by Als, that positions

Neel’s work within conversations of race and class representation. By looking at Neel’s work in relation to Spanish Romanticism and Cuban modernism, this thesis is able to explain, in part,

Neel’s engagement with leftist politics and previously understudied formal qualities of her work.

A limited examination of Neel’s time spent in Havana resulted in her engagement with leftist politics being understudied.

Neel has become a topic of interest amongst art historians in recent years, as there has been a resurgence in fascination in Neel as an artist who was left unacknowledged for the majority of her life. These art historians are acknowledging her political engagement with subjects of diverse race, ethnicities, and socioeconomic status. For example, the Centre

Pompidou is currently scheduled to open a major retrospective of Neel’s work scheduled for

June 10th, 2020 to August 24th, 2020. The exhibit will be divided between Neel’s examination of class in her portraits and her examination of gender. This exhibit at a major international center for modern and contemporary art exemplifies the growing interest in Neel’s work, particularly in relation to class and leftist politics, demonstrating that my research and interests in Neel are in line with current revisionist scholarship on the artist. By examining the relationship between

Neel’s work, Spanish Romanticism, Cuban modernism, I have expanded the discourse surrounding Neel, enabling us to see her work’s engagement with international politics, anti- fascist rhetoric, and pan-Hispanism.

36 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Image Appendix

Figure 1: Alice Neel, Beggars, Havana, Cuba, 1926, oil on canvas, 20 x 18 in, Private Collection.

Figure 2: Alice Neel, Elsie Rubin, 1958, oil on canvas, 16 x 14 in, Whitney Museum of American Art.

37 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 3: Alice Neel, Self-Portrait, 1980, oil on canvas, 53.27 x 39.76 in, David Zwirner Gallery, NY.

Figure 4: Alice Neel, Linda Nochlin and Daisy, 1973, oil on canvas, 55.88 x 44 in, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

38 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 5: Alice Neel, The Spanish Family, 1943, oil on canvas, 34 x 28 in, Private Collection.

Figure 6: Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvas, 125 x 109 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

39 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 7: Alice Neel, Dominican Boys on 108th Street, 1955, oil on canvas, 41.85 x 48.03 in, Tate Modern.

Figure 8: Alice Neel, Black Spanish-American Family, 1950, oil on Masonite, 76 x 56 in, Private Collection.

40 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 9: Alice Neel, Stephen Shepard, 1978, oil on canvas, 32 x 24 in, Estate of Alice Neel.

Figure 10: Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819–1823, oil on canvas, 56 x 32 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

41 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 11: Francisco Goya, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, 1800–1801, oil on canvas, 110 x 132 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

Figure 12: Francisco Goya, Self-Portrait, 1815, oil on canvas, 18.03 x 14.02 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

42 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 13: Francisco Goya, The Garroted Man (El agarrotado), 1778–1780, etching, 13 x 8 in, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Figure 14: Alice Neel, T.B. Harlem, 1940, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in, National Museum of Women in the Arts.

43 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 15: Francisco Goya, Naked Maja, 1797–1800, oil on canvas, 38 x 75 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

Figure 16: Francisco Goya, Clothed Maja, 1800–1805, oil on canvas, 38 x 75 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

Figure 17: Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 138 x 306 in, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

44 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 18: Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814, oil on canvas, 106 x 137 in, Museo Nacional del Prado.

Figure 19: Alice Neel, Kenneth Fearing, 1935, oil on canvas, 30 x 26 in, Museum of Modern Art.

45 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 20: Alice Neel, Carlos Enríquez, 1926, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in, Estate of Alice Neel.

Figure 21: Wilfredo Lam, Compositión 1, 1930, oil on canvas, McMullen Museum of Art.

46 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 22: Alice Neel, Sam and Richard, 1940, oil on canvas, 26 x 21 in, Museum of Modern Art.

Figure 23: Eduardo Abela, Guajiros, 1938, oil on canvas, 33 x 28 in, National Museum of Fine Arts Havana.

47 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 24: Alice Neel, Portrait of John with Hat, 1935, oil on canvas, 23 x 21 in, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Figure 25: Diego Rivera, Baile en Tehuantepec, 1928, MALBA.

48 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

Figure 26: Alice Neel, Pat Whalen, 1935, oil on canvas, 27 x 23 in, Whitney Museum of American Art.

Figure 27: Alice Neel, Two Girls, Spanish Harlem, 1959, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

49 Viva La Mujer: International Leftist Politics and Pan-Hispanism in the Work of Alice Neel

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