Alice Neel

Portrait painter Alice Neel (1900-1984) was a self-described collector of souls who recorded her sitters on canvas through six decades of the 20th century, among them Andy Warhol, Bella Abzug, Allen Ginsberg and Annie Sprinkle. Neel always sought the authentic, moving from Greenwich Village to Spanish Harlem just as the Village was gaining reputation in the art scene. She sacrificed almost everything for her art. She would almost lose herself delving so far into the psyches of her sitters. Yet Neel was also a dedicated mother, raising two sons in the bohemian world she inhabited. Filmmaker Andrew Neel, Alice Neel’s grandson, puts together the pieces of the painter's life using intimate one-on-one interviews with Neel’s surviving family and personal archival video. The documentary explores the artist’s tumultuous biography and the legacy of Alice Neel’s determination to paint her era.