Eliana Willis

Elizabeth Neel was eight years old when she got her first set of oil paints, a Winsor & Newton paintbox, as a gift from her grandmother, the late, great portraitist Alice Neel.
Neel’s earliest painting experiences were with Alice, working side by side. But there was never any pressure to follow in her footsteps.
“I liked to draw a lot and she wanted to encourage that, because she thought I was good and she had a connection with me. We had a lot of fun together,” Neel told Artnet News. “She was a great grandmother, even though she never allowed anyone to call her that. She was always Alice to us.”
“A lot of people will say to me, ‘It must be hard that your grandmother was always so famous’—but she wasn’t,” Neel added. “For me, she was this intelligent, charming human who made these beautiful, insightful pictures that we lived around all my childhood. I think it would have been really different if she’d been a man and she’d been properly famous—that could have been oppressive.”
Elizabeth Neel, Dog Dog (2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Instead, Neel, now 46, was able to enter the art world on her own terms, first getting a certificate at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, followed by an MFA at Columbia University in New York. She’s shown her abstract paintings regularly since 2005, and she enjoyed a 2010 solo show at SculptureCenter in Queens.
The past few months, however, have been a particularly busy time, as Neel was preparing for not one, but two solo shows. “Arms Now Legs” is currently on view at her New York gallery, Salon 94. “Limb After Limb,” featuring paintings she originally planned to exhibit in a deconsecrated church, will debut next month at Pilar Corrias, Neel’s London dealer.
“The Salon 94 title references certain kind of transformative imagery in Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and the show at Pilar’s is a more John Milton-esque image of the world in a transformative state of turmoil, so I see the two as very connected,” Neel said. “Given the way I work, which is organically with a set of ideas, it was impossible for them not to be related. Everything that I’m reading about or thinking about or listening to goes into the work.”
Elizabeth Neel, Stranger’s End (2021). Photo courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Each piece starts with raw canvas and a primer coat of clear acrylic polymer that keeps the painting from sinking in all the way through the fabric. It also allows Neel to use white to create lighter areas against the background, many areas of which she leaves untouched, to “preserve a lot of air in the canvas,” she said.
But unlike her childhood oil painting sessions with Alice, Neel chooses acrylic paint to create her many-layered works.
“When I worked in oil, it took so long for every layer to dry that I would get out of the headspace I needed to feel a kind of continuity in the painting,” she explained.
Neel has a deep bag of tricks at her disposal to achieve her complex compositions, sometimes folding the painted canvas to create a Rorschach-like effect, and employing a wide variety of tools in her mark-making. “I use rollers, I use rags, I use my hands with rubber gloves on—and once in a while, I do use a brush too,” she said.
Elizabeth Neel, Exchange Principle (detail, 2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Neel has been living and working almost exclusively at her childhood home in rural Vermont, pressing the barn space above her parents’ garage into service as her studio. The change of scenery from her longtime home in Brooklyn proved inspirational.
“It was incredible to be able to step out into a snowy landscape or a sunny world of grass and flowers. Much more refreshing than stepping out onto a concrete slab with loud noises,” Neel said. “It felt almost like being a hermit or a monk. It was frightening, to a degree, to begin making a show without any human context, but it was a challenge that ended up being really good for me.”
Elizabeth Neel’s Vermont studio. Photo courtesy of Salon 94, New York.
She made one of two trips back to New York for the opening of her grandmother’s critically acclaimed retrospective, “Alice Neel: People Come First,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in March. (The exhibition closed earlier this month.)
“I’m incredibly happy that she’s getting what I think is her due,” Neel said. “Alice is really inspirational for me. I don’t think I ever met a person who was more tenacious or had more guts in the face of lack of interest than she had.”
Elizabeth Neel, Darlest Dearing (2020). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Alice’s struggles for recognition and financial compensation, which were documented in the show, were part of the reason her two sons were drawn to the professional world, becoming a doctor and a lawyer. But Elizabeth and her brother, filmmaker Andrew Neel, turned back to pursue creative careers. (He made a feature-length documentary about Alice in 2007, and is currently completing a documentary short about Neel that Corrias will debut during Frieze London in October.)
“I think that actually happens lot in creative families, where you’ll have a flip-flopping effect,” Neel said. The poverty that her father, Hartley Neel, and her uncle, Richard Neel, experienced as children drove them to seek more stable career paths—an impulse that Neel, who took the LSAT before entering art school, understands fully.
“Alice suffered terribly on a physical and emotional level at the hands of her art and the art world,” she said. “That’s not something that you jump into lightly!”
See more works by Neel below.
Elizabeth Neel, Ark Scenario (2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Ark Scenario (detail, 2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Following the Birds (detail, 2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Eve 2 (2021). Photo courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Sister (Sibling 1) (detail, 2020). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Blue Black Bleed (2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Eve (2021). Photo courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London, ©Elizabeth Neel.
Elizabeth Neel, Exchange Principle (2021). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, ©Elizabeth Neel.
“Elizabeth Neel: Arms Now Legs” is on view at Salon 94, 3 East 89th Street, New York, June 30–August 27, 2021.
“Elizabeth Neel: Limb After Limb” will be on view at Pilar Corrias, 2 Savile Row, London, September 16–October 23, 2021.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The bustling city is visible outside its tall glass walls, but inside the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, there is a pristine kind of quiet. Little stirs except Alexander Calder’s large mobiles, which are gently spinning from an indiscernible wind. They are part of a monumental first exhibition at the German museum, which is opening for the first time in more than six years on August 22.
One who did not know it would hardly guess the entire museum, designed by Mies van der Rohe, was just turned inside out. The bi-level museum has been meticulously restored by David Chipperfield Architects, paid for by the federal government. Few would argue that the €140 million ($168 million) renovation was unnecessary: The building had fallen into disrepair, with rust, cracks in the glass, and a pesky issue with condensation, among a longer list of issues.
Six years on, entering the museum is somewhat like stepping into a deep past. Chipperfield, who worked with the brief to maintain “as much Mies as possible,” had his team dismantle the structure of glass and steel piece by piece, and each element was painstakingly restored to be as true as possible to the day the museum was unveiled to great acclaim in 1968. The architect died a year later; the building was his last. 
Exhibition view of “The Art of Society 1900–1945: The Collection of the Nationalgalerie,” 2021. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / David von Becker
Even a famous Calder piece that was there on that postwar opening day has returned. For the Calder exhibition “Minimal/Maximal,” Têtes et queue (1965) is back on the terrace where it stood, in what was then West Berlin. Dark carpets and restored Barcelona chairs, the celebrated seats made by the architect, are back on view and ready for guests.
In the lower level, one finds the restaurant, renewed thanks to artist Jorge Pardo, who has created a contemporary intervention that sensitively draws on the room’s Anni Albers motifs, employing Mexican-Spanish references.
Contemporary positions like Pardo’s will also be presented in temporary shows. Rosa Barba has the first slot, with a major installation called In a Perpetual Now, and more female contemporary artists, including Barbara Kruger and Monica Bonvicini, are on the docket. In 2026, the museum will host works from the Centre Pompidou in Paris when it closes for its own long-overdue renovation.
Alexander Calder Untitled (1954). Calder Foundation, New York; Gift of Andréa Davidson, 2007. © 2021 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. VG-Bildkunst, Bonn 2021 / Photo by David von Becker
The main rooms feature a presentation of the museum’s esteemed collection of modern art, which was painstakingly rebuilt after almost all of it was looted and lost during World War II. Since then, the holdings have outgrown the space capacities of the building, so a new and somewhat controversially-designed structure has broken ground next door to house a good portion of the collection, which waits in storage until the new space is ready in 2026.
Like the building’s redesign, its first show, “The Art of Society 1900–1945,” also takes us back in time. The highlight opener is a poignant painting by German painter Lotte Laserstein’s Evening Over Potsdam (1930). A group sits outside, looking forlorn; in the background dark clouds reflect the looming rise of National Socialism. The museum bought it in 2010 at Sotheby’s for £421,250, according to the Artnet Price Database.
Other areas focus on European art and the cultures that informed and surrounded the artists between 1900 to 1945. There is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s absinthe-soaked canvas Potsdamer Platz from 1914, which shows a landscape from nearby the museum that was totally flattened about three decades later. Powerful pictures evoke the devastations of World War I, too, like Otto Dix’s Die Skatspieler from 1920—a psychedelic collaged painting depicting amputee veterans with machinelike limbs.
Lotte Laserstein, Evening Over Potsdam, 1930. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021.Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Roman März
The museum will continue to focus on western modernism, in all its highs and lows; however, while the building may have been restored to the past, there are moments that bring it into the future, such as new didactic panels that address the racist gaze present in works by painter Emil Nolde and his cohort, made during colonial times in the South Pacific.
At a recent press preview, the museum’s director lamented gaps in the collection, which he is eager to fill. “My hope is that we can add to the collection these positions that are missing,” Joachim Jäger said, noting that despite a limited collecting budget, he would love to bring more diversity into the collection. At the top of his list are long-overlooked artists like Irma Stern and Hilma af Klint, the latter of which has a work currently on loan for the show.
See more images of the exhibitions and galleries below.

Alexander Calder, Têtes et queue, 1965, from “Minimal/Maximal. “Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie © 2021 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Photo: Stephanie von Becker
Exhibition view of “The Art of Society 1900–1945: The Collection of the Nationalgalerie,” 2021. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / David von Becker
Otto Dix, Die Skatspieler, 1920. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021. Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jörg P. Anders
Exhibition view of “The Art of Society 1900–1945: The Collection of the Nationalgalerie,” 2021. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / David von Becker
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914. © Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jörg P. Anders
Exhibition view of “The Art of Society 1900–1945: The Collection of the Nationalgalerie,” 2021. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / David von Becker
“The Art of Society 1900–1945,” Alexander Calder’s “Minimal/Maximal,” and Rosa Barba’s “In a Perpetual Now” open at the Neue Nationalgalerie on August 22.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Two photographs by Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, are part of an exhibition honoring Holocaust survivors at the Imperial War Museums in London.
“While I have been lucky enough to meet two of the now very few survivors, I recognize not everyone in the future will be able to hear these stories first hand,” Middleton said in a statement. “It is vital that their memories are preserved and passed on to future generations.”
For “Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors,” Middleton and 13 fellows from the Royal Photographic Society photographed Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
“We felt it was important to celebrate the survivors of the Holocaust through this exhibition and create a body of work that could be shown in the future, with family members in the photographs who would have a direct connection to them,” Michael Pritchard, the director of education and public affairs at the Royal Photographic Society, told Artnet News.
Kate Middleton, portrait of Holocaust survivor Steven Frank and his two granddaughters, Maggie and Trixie Fleet, at Kensington Palace for “Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors” at the Imperial War Museums, London. Photo ©the Duchess of Cambridge. Steven Frank
The exhibition grew out of a special issue of the Jewish News commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The show, which is a collaboration between the newspaper, the Royal Photographic Society, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and Dangoor Education, was delayed from a planned 2020 opening by the pandemic.
Middleton photographed Steven Frank with his two granddaughters, Maggie and Trixie Fleet, and Yvonne Bernstein and her granddaughter, Chloe Wright, at Kensington Palace ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2020.
Kate Middleton with Holocaust survivor Yvonne Bernstein during a portrait session at Kensington Palace. Photo courtesy of Kensington Palace.
Frank, born in the Netherlands in 1935, was one of only 93 children to escape the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Remarkably, though his father was murdered at Auschwitz, Frank’s two brothers and mother also survived, in part thanks to the extra scraps of bread his mother acquired by secretly washing prisoners’ clothes through her job at the camp laundry. Frank brought the tin saucepan in which she would mix the bread with hot water to his portrait session with Middleton.
Kate Middleton, portrait of Holocaust survivor Yvonne Bernstein and her granddaughter Chloe Wright at Kensington Palace for “Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors” at the Imperial War Museums, London. Photo ©the Duchess of Cambridge. Steven Frank
Bernstein, born in Germany 1937, was separated from her parents at one year old, when they each individually managed to obtain visas to work in the U.K. War broke out before she could join them, and Bernstein was forced into hiding in France with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. The family was arrested and the uncle killed at Auschwitz, but Bernstein was released and eventually reunited with her parents in Britain in 1945. For her photograph, she posed with her German ID card, stamped with the letter “J” to identify her as a Jew.
“They look back on their experiences with sadness but also with gratitude that they were some of the lucky few to make it through. Their stories will stay with me forever,” Middleton added.
Kate Middleton with Holocaust survivor Yvonne Bernstein during a portrait session at Kensington Palace. Photo courtesy of Kensington Palace.
This isn’t the first time that Middleton’s prowess with the camera has made headlines. In 2017, the Royal Photographic Society awarded her an honorary lifetime membership recognizing her tour photographs and family portraits. She has been a society patron since 2019.
Prior to her life as a royal, Middleton also took photographs for her family’s party planning company, Party Pieces. She also majored in art history at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, where she met Prince William.
Last year, Middleton began working with the National Portrait Gallery in London on a community photography project documenting life during lockdown in the U.K. She had previously curated a Victorian photography exhibition at the NPG in 2018.
“Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors” is on view at the Imperial War Museums, Lambeth Road, London, SE1 6HZ, August 6, 2021–January 9, 2022.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The first U.S. survey in 25 years for the Surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim is coming to New York’s Museum of Modern Art this fall.
“Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition” will feature more than 180 works by the Swiss-German artist, including paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures. The show will go on view at the Kunstmuseum Bern before traveling to MoMA on October 22, followed by the Menil Collection in Houston later in the year.
Though best known for her 1936 work Object (Objet), the artist’s oeuvre extends well beyond furry flatware. In painting, drawing, and mixed media collage, Oppenheim tapped into her interest in psychoanalysis and a knack for subverting convention to humorous and disturbing ends.
Meret Oppenheim, Glove (for Parkett no. 4) (1985). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
Oppenheim’s fascination with the body is also apparent in works like Bees Knees—a sterling silver platter with a pair of white women’s pumps bound together at the heels, which end in paper frills, like a bondage-inspired Norman Rockwell turkey dish. Oppenheim was also fascinated by hands and gloves, and many of her objets d’art used the garment in some way, with hand-painted and embroidered veins splayed on top of a pair of white leather gloves or a pair of hands ensconced in hirsute coverings from which red-painted nails poke out, like the extremities of a female werewolf in Pelzhandschuhe, 1936.
The artist was also a muse and model for her peers, most notably in Erotique Voilée a photographic series by Man Ray that placed a nude Oppenheim next to a printing press with one arm and hand covered in sticky dark paint. The lithe nude woman juxtaposed next to the large wheel with its iron spokes and phallic wooden handle creates a tableaux ripe for analysis.
Below, see some of Oppenheim’s most famous works.
Meret Oppenheim, Octavia (Oktavia) (1969). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
Meret Oppenheim, Stone Woman (Steinfrau) (1938). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
Meret Oppenheim, New Stars (Neue Sterne) (1977–82). Kunstmuseum Bern. Meret Oppenheim Bequest. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
Meret Oppenheim, X-Ray of M.O.’s Skull (Röntgenaufnahme des Schädels M.O.). (1964/1981). Hermann and Margrit Rupf Foundation. Kunstmuseum Bern. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More