Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Neel’s own existence was financially precarious, and she was reliant on government welfare to support her and her two sons. Instead, her portraits bear witness to a network of interrelations shaped by the dynamics of a city where, like in Levitt’s film, people from every race and class rub up against each other. This curatorial approach was taken up in There’s Still Another I See , which opened at Victoria Miro gallery in London last month (until 12 November). It never betrays Neel by sidestepping the graceless, sorry or awkward in her art, just as she never ignored it in life.

Part of what’s being represented is the trust itself, the willingness to expose vulnerability, on which the painting’s existence depends.a painting by the Pennsylvania-born artist Alice Neel, a young Puerto Rican boy sits on a dining chair wearing a striped shirt and a large medallion. Ashton as an example: Ashton is exposed and uncomfortable, crouching down with a glint of fear in her eye.

In the Barbican’s final room, a portrait of Gus Hall, leader of the Communist Party USA, sits beside one of porn activist Annie Sprinkle in full fetish gear. It was important therefore to represent human beings in painting and create especially a space for those who otherwise went unseen. This exhibition highlights Neel’s understanding of the politics of seeing and what it means to feel seen; organised in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou Paris, it opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 16 February 2023.There is her trademark blue outline, looping, skimming and scudding round each figure, that doesn’t seem bent on correctness of proportion or old-school description. Face versus body, the mind in spite of the physique, or perhaps the life itself: that seems a steady fascination.

The Galleries are a stimulating place for students to experience major artworks from some of the world’s leading visual artists and learn about contemporary and modern art. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions.In October 1955, FBI agents visited Neel to question her regarding her ties to the Communist party – this was at the height of the Cold War, when she had been identified as a ‘romantic, Bohemian type Communist’ .

Additional highlights include a large-scale self-portrait from 1980, painted at the age of 80, four years before Neel’s death. The art critic lies back, voluntarily naked, in the thick pelt of his own body hair: an ape of an odalisque.In her later years Alice Neel became famous for her lectures, and the documentary film by Nancy Baer, which brings the exhibition to a close, allows us a glimpse of the flesh-and-blood Alice Neel, and lets her speak for herself about life and its place in her art.