http://www.uam.ucsb.edu/Pages/last.html
The Art of Alice Neel. 6 September 2008. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. 3 February 2009.
This website talks about an exhibition of Alice Neel’s work that was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art from June to September of 2000. It explains the exhibition, gives some background on Alice Neel’s life, and gives a few details about some of her portraits. This source seems very reliable and also rather current. This website told me a little about Last Sickness. It turns out that this portrait is of Alice Neel’s mother during the last few months of her life. It was more helpful in terms of giving information about Alice Neel’s life and style. I learned that she had a very hard life. She was born in 1900 in a town outside of Philadelphia and got married in 1925. Her first daughter died and soon after she gave birth to another daughter. She then got divorced, separated from her daughter, had a nervous breakdown, tried to commit suicide, and had her paintings destroyed by a lover. She then moved to Spanish Harlem and raised two sons.
Kinships: Alice Neel Looks at the Family. The University Art Museum. 3 February 2009.
This website covers an exhibition that was on display at the Tacoma Art Museum in 1997. This display is called “Kinships: Alice Neel Looks at the Family” and focuses on paintings that have to do with family. Last Sickness was included in this display and the website gives some information about the artist and about the painting. This is a reliable website because it was made by the University Art Museum of the University of California at Santa Barbara and universities are generally reliable sources. I learned that Alice Neel’s mother came to live with her in 1953 and died the next year. The portrait was painted in 1953. This website also brings up something that Mrs. Neel said to Alice when she was a child, “I don't know what you expect to do in the world. You're only a girl.” It then goes on to say that Mrs. Neel felt very frustrated at not being able to do something with herself.
Lane, Jim. Alice Neel. CyberPathway’s Art World. 3 February 2009.
Jim Lane addresses Alice Neel’s life and work on this website. He talks again about Neel’s hard life and then analyzes a few of her paintings including Last Sickness and Andy Warhol. I trust this website because the facts it presents matches with facts from other websites. The author knows a lot about art and taught elementary, high school, and college art for 26 years. He has also “run a portrait business out of his home.” The author mentions Alice Neel’s honesty especially in Last Sickness. He says that it portrays frailty and beauty and is “intimate without being sentimental.” This website did not have very much new information about Alice Neel or Last Sickness but was a good overview of her life and a few of her works.
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