Alice Neel: The Soul Collector!

0:35Please enjoy this ringback tone while your podcast is reached. This is Raquel and Chelsea, and you're listening to Baroque Bitches. Welcome to Baroque Bitches, your art and art history gossip podcast. I'm Raquel. I'm Chelsea. We're back, babe. It's here. It's January. Yes, it's like the tail end of January. 2026. But we're doing it. Hello. Life is life-ing. Despite life-lifing and government's government-ing-ish. Oh, my God. Yeah, we're not going to think about it right now. We're going to take it out of our world. And files not exposed-ish and all that good stuff.

1:11We're still here. We're still talking about art history. We're still here, even though we kind of took a little holiday break. Thanks for being patient. Spent some time with the fam. We de-stressed. We got some stuff on Patreon. Yes. And I've still got my, like, health journey stuff going on. And so I follow this dad on Instagram who takes care of his daughter with a traumatic brain injury. Because I, like, of course, have to, you know, do that.

1:41Yeah. And his daughter- You got to look at the parents. Well, his daughter has this quote that's like, you have so many problems until you have a health problem. And then you have one problem. Totally. It's like, fuck. This is, like, taking over my entire life. I have no idea what's wrong with me. So- True. You don't know what's wrong with you. I'm so sorry. And you're not alone. You're not alone. Not alone. So I've been weird for, like, the past couple of days

2:14because I saw this movie. Uh-oh. Don't do that. I saw Hereditary. No. Is that with Toni Collette? Oh, you know I don't know the names of people. They're amazing actors. Oh, my God. Amazing. Everyone was an amazing actor in that. And, oh. I mean, if you guys know, I'm like, okay, I need to watch scary movies like Crack of Dawn. Like, I have sleep problems. So I get up at, like, usually 2, 3 in the morning. And I'm like, okay, what do I do? Obvious choice.

2:47Watch the scariest movie you can find. Everyone's been telling me to see this movie. Oh, psychological thriller. For sure. Yeah. Let's get into it. And then I'm, like, audibly gasp. As Alex sleeping by. He's like, you okay? I'm like, no. No. I'm actually not okay. I'm not okay. And so I've been, like, feeling a little icky all week. Like, of it is, it does, you know, say to how amazing the movie is of how viscerally affected I've

3:17been for the last few days. That's, like, when I watched Inception and it ruined my life for, like, three weeks. Totally. Totally. When you're just, like, I need to just go. I need to go take a walk. Like, I just need to, like, clear my head. No, I'm, like, banned from psychological thrillers. Like, I can't do a psych thriller anymore. Memento. No, you're not allowed to watch that one. Oh, my God. Absolutely not. But, yeah. No, it is Toni Collette. And I love her.

3:50And I wish I liked scary movies more. Because, oh, my God. This would fuck you up, yeah. I'm also coming as not a parent. So I think this would affect parents a lot more than non-parents, for sure. Like, 100%. It would affect parents a lot more. But it's, like, oh, God. Like, the whole time. Like, the whole time. We're good. We're good. We don't need to watch it. Absolutely not. Yeah. No, you can't watch it. But that has been fucking me up.

4:22So if you know, you know. Yes. And, yeah. I just, I remember, like, going into a party. I went to a party the other day. And it was, like, how are you? I'm, like, I'm not okay after watching this movie. And they're, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep. Totally understand. No, I love that. I'm not okay. No niceties. We're just going to tell you how it is in 2026. Listen. Yeah, yeah. I like it. I like going forward.

4:53Listen. Tell. If someone asks you how you're doing. That should be your New Year's resolution. Fucking blatant honesty. No more sugarcoating. That's it. Yeah. Talk about stuff. Well, I mean, speaking of somebody who is truly outspoken in, like, the best way possible. Do you want to do it? I'm so excited for this one. I'm so excited. Okay. It's so good. Brought to you by your Patreon listeners. Yes. You guys can't do this. Suggested, voted on. If you want voting rights, got to join the Patreon.

5:30Okay. Let's do it. Let's visualize. Let's visualize. Ooh. I'm a soul collector. Not in the way stories warn you about. I don't steal breath or shorten lives. I collect the way a lens collects light. By being open. By staying still long enough for something true to pass through me. I am empty when no one is here. Not lonely, just unlit. A vessel without a current. I move through the world waiting for a moment.

6:04A human forgets to protect themselves. That's when it happens. A pause. A crack. A story told without polish. A feeling that slips out before it can be revised. When a soul enters me, I ignite. I feel full, purposeful, and alive. Their story presses against my edges. Their grief. Their humor. Their small, private courage. I do not judge it. I arrange it. I give it shape so it can be seen. This is my art.

6:39This is how I appreciate humanity. By holding it carefully while it reveals itself. But souls are not meant to stay. As I hold them, they thin. Not from harm, but from honesty. Being seen costs something. When they leave, they leave lighter. And I remain marked. Imprinted with their outline, their tone, the way they occupied space. These traces are what I live on. They fuel me forward.

7:10I empty again. I always do. And still, I keep collecting. Not because I'm greedy, but because humans deserve to be witness. Because their stories want form. Because for a moment, inside me, they are held without interruption. That moment is enough to keep me alive. So, welcome to Alice Neal, the soul collector. Soul collector. Good one. Dude. Okay, this one was like a really ethereal experience for me.

7:41I always knew I liked Alice Neal's work. But I just like never did a hyper fixation. It getting it knee deep into like her stories and her interviews and stuff. And when you start watching clips of her, you cannot stop. It's like something's been untapped within me with Alice Neal. And it's like an obsession. A neuro spicy fixation. And super, super relevant today, too, with Trump attacking New Deal

8:13initiatives. Oh, my God. So, that's a fun thing. Oh, yay. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't sleep, guys. Oh, my God. He's coming for us. Still coming for us. Can we just get a day? One day. So, super, super relevant artist today. Absolutely. Who I'm so excited. I don't know much about her besides I've seen her paintings. Oh, my God. I love her so much. It's so good.

8:45But, like, lower your expectations. Like, take the pressure off of me for a second. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's get into it. So, I'm going to give you some context. Let's set the scene. Where are we going? How are we feeling? What modes of transportation were available? Well, we're going to the early 1900s in America. And as you can imagine, this was just, like, a lot at this time.

9:19A lot. America, you know, the industrial, noisy, smoky thing. All the while being deeply convinced that hard work and emotional repression would solve everything. That, like, mentality is still destroying us. So, this was a time when factories were booming. Child labor was something, somehow consider, like, character building. And the concept of work-life balance was a faint whisper from a kid who looked like he could star in Oliver and then was immediately punished in a very, you would

9:51go to jail by today's standards kind of way. Except maybe not right now. God, it's such bad times we're in. Okay. We're just flipping around. Back to the 1900s, you guys. I know you love it. Oh, my God. You loved it. You loved it. So, Pennsylvania, specifically, was industrial America in its final boss form. There's, like, railroad workers, coal mines, steel mills. The Pennsylvania Railroad wasn't just a job. It was a lifestyle, a personality, and a moral compass.

10:24So, the social roles were really tight. Children were meant to be seen, not heard. Women, polite and patient. Men were allergic to emotions beyond mild satisfaction and suppressed rage. Clothing was very layered, heavy, wildly impractical, suggesting that society believed suffering was an important fashion accessory. And if you were comfortable, you were probably doing something wrong. Like, nasty. Yeah. So, we're still in corset era. Yeah. That looked like medieval punishment clothing. Yeah. Men wore hats at all times.

10:56Probably even in bed. I do, like, don't mind that. I kind of like the hat culture. The only thing I want back is the hat. The hat. Like, not like the ball cap, like the tall hats. Like a hat. Like a top hat. Like a magician vibe. Totally. Totally. And presumably, like, bare heads were supposedly scandalous. Which, like, if you've got it, flaunt it. Fabian. So, on a side note, Fabian recently told me about bald

11:27reddit. And it's for, it's reddit for balding. Oh, I need to know what happened. Yes. Okay. So, this is a total sidetrack. But bald reddit is, like, a safe space for, you know, people, men, women, who are losing their hair. Losing their hair. Yeah. And you can go on there and post pictures of yourself and be like, is it time? Like, should I, you know, should I shave it? It's time. And people are, like, very supportive in this community. And we'll be like, no, no, you're still looking good.

12:03Or, like, come join us, one of us. Yeah. Nobody that loves you would say, no, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. Keep it. And, like, and it's all about, like, bald appreciation. Like, you're hot. You, like, you're going to love it here on this side. Like, come on over. Nothing against the baldness. The baldness. No. Yes. But. So, back then, obviously, even hot baldies would have had to wear a hat. Because it's literally, it's too sexy. It's too hot. It's too sexy.

12:38Yeah. The bald head. That's like a preview. That's like a preview. What's going on downstairs? Yes. Aye. Aye. Oh, my God. I love that. I got to get on bald Reddit. Get on bald Reddit. Okay. So, the world was full of strict rules. Sit up straight. Don't talk back. And absolutely do not suggest that women might want careers or opinions. So, naturally, we need a disruptor. Yes. To be born. So, enter Alice Neal. Yes. So, age. Sex. Location. So, 1900.

13:11Sex. Woman. Tragic for the time. Iconic for history. Location. Pennsylvania. Anyway. Yeah. So, dad. Daddy. Dad is George Neal. He worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Steady job. Strong sense of duty. Probably smelled a lot like cold dust. You know. Definitely not getting warm and fuzzies from dad. Hard working. Blue collared. Rough hands. He doesn't get it. Rough hands. Mom. Mom. So, mom is Alice Concross Hartley Neal. Oh. She's a former school teacher who had given up her career after she got married.

13:43As you do. As you do. That's the time we're in. Yeah. Extremely the vibe. And so, and then Alice Neal is born January 28th, 1900. Oh, my gosh. She's literally my spirit animal. Yes. We're going to say it's tomorrow. It's tomorrow. Wish I had my birthday. Happy my birthday. If you're an Aquarius, you get it. Not a lot of people get us, but when they do, they really do. Oh, you hang on tight to those Aquarians. We're weirdos.

14:13They'll let you know. Yes. We don't hold anything back. Aquarius is how big I see through society and don't like what I see energy. Independent, contrarian, and completely uninterested in behaving like we're supposed to. Yeah. No. Absolutely not. They don't do that. They don't do that. Don't tell them to do that. They don't like it. No. No, absolutely not. There's like this video that Fabian loves to show me, and it's, oh, God. Oh, fuck. I'm going to have to cut this out.

14:45It's in Spanish, and it's like, if you know how I get, why'd you invite me? Yeah. Like, just don't invite me. You know how I am. And it's just like, is there no growth or development? No. No. No, this is how I am. No, this is how we are. Take us how we are. Don't invite us to the party unless you're ready for that sort of energy, because we don't give a fuck. So, yes. Alice Neal was born in 1900 in Marion Square, Pennsylvania, into a family

15:19that was not ready for her. And she grew up in a house where practicality reigned supreme. Stability was the goal. Creativity was confusing. And art was not discouraged in, like, a dramatic villain way, but it was also not nurtured with enthusiasm. More like, that's nice, nice, dear, but, like, how are you going to turn this into, like, money? Yeah. So, her relationship with her parents, especially with her mother, is, like, complicated. There was love, but also distance, tension, and a lot of internalized misogyny just, like, floating around the house, like,

15:54a toxic sense. And us Aquarians, even though we don't give a fuck, we are incredibly sensitive. So, it's, like, confusing. Yeah. Even though we don't present as such. Well, you pick up on the vibes. You pick up on vibes more than anything. I was like, who never said that? And he's like, he vibed it. I vibed it. He vibed it. I know you didn't say it. Okay. But your aura is telling me otherwise. Your aura is, like, screaming at me, dude.

16:25I think about that scene from Friends when Ross just finds out that his ex-wife Carol's a lesbian, and Phoebe, like, starts cleaning his aura, and he's like, no, stop. Don't clean my aura. I'm, like, always cleaning the aura. That's how I feel. So, so, she's letting all of this simmer inside of her. These expectations are placed on her to do her role as a female. She's quiet, introverted, and, like, hella observant. Very smart, and very much, I need to get the fuck out of

16:58this situation. So, she goes to the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, now known as Moore College of Art and Design, which is basically where artistic women were allowed to exist as, like, a treat. Not as, like, a, oh, you're going to be a real, like, professional artist. Yeah. As, like, you can come here. You'll have fun. We guess. Yeah. Until you get married, you'll have fun. But it was one of the few respectable places a young woman could study art without everyone panicking about what

17:33her morality was. And Alice, for the first time, is surrounded by other women who are serious, talented, and also low-key pissed about their limited options. So, she's very serious. She learns anatomy, drawing, composition. And she's fucking locked in. And this is where she realizes art isn't just emotional expression, it's labor, craft, something you have to work very hard for. Which honestly fits perfectly with her, like, industrial railroad child upbringing.

18:03Same discipline, different output. So, after graduating, she does the next logical step for women artists in 1920s, and she goes to the one, the baddie, the big times, New York. New York. New York. She's like, let me get all nasty up in this bitch. Yes. You have to, especially from Philly. You're going to New York. Come on. What are you doing? She wants to lose the proprietary concern. She wants to live a raw, unfiltered life. And this city is chaotic, alive, full of ideas, and significantly less

18:41concerned about whether you're being, like, ladylike. So, she enrolls at the Art Student League, where she studies under Robert Henri, leader of the Ashcan School, patron saint of painting regular, messy, real people. And this is huge for her, because his whole philosophy is basically, like, stop idealizing. Start looking. Paint life as it is. And Alice's, Neil's brain is like, say less. Yes. I got this. Finally, someone on my level. Yeah, didn't he write, he wrote The Art Spirit, I think.

19:15And that was very, like, hippy-dippy, like, just let it be, let it flow, let a brushstroke flow. Oh, it's not as strong, like, that kind of a thing. And we're in, like, the 1920s. So, it's very much not, like, super in vogue to be painting, like, people in any sort of, like, real way, right? Photography's here. Photography's here. She's queer. But, yeah. And I bet there was questions about that, of are we painting portraits anymore

19:48since we can photograph portraits? What are we doing? Since we can photograph, what are we doing? We're still figuring it out. Yeah. And then it happens. Because, of course, it does. She meets a boy. Boy. Boo. Ew. Ew. Oh, no. Yucky. Okay. Here's this guy. Oh, God. It's sad. Okay. So, in 1925, Alice marries Cuban artist Carlos Enriquez. Ooh. So, you can look up this painting, Carlos Enriquez, Alice Neel paintings.

20:19You'll find it'll come right up. A lot of her works are titled by The Sitter. And so, if she painted them more than once, it's, like, it's kind of, yeah. Oh, very sexy. Okay. So, listen. This relationship was insane. Okay. I mean, it's everything you think it would be. It's passionate, artistic, dramatic, absolutely unhinged. Yeah. And I love, like, if you listen to interviews by her, she'll be like, well, I was a very good-looking girl. I'm like, yes, honey, you were.

20:54You are. And so, of course, this, like, hot, sexy dude comes in. Gorgeous. Two intense creatives. He's also a painter. They're both very young, very emotional, very allergic to stability. And they move between New York and Havana, Cuba, where he's from. Living that early 20th century avant-garde life. That's so cool. Right? Yeah. That's so cool. It's, like, everything feels so important. Nobody has any money. So, basically, like, college for you and me.

21:25Totally. Yeah. And Alice is deeply in love, deeply committed, and deeply not prepared for how this is so not the business and not what we want for our girl at all. So, this marriage matters because it's Alice's first taste of freedom and devastation. So, buckle up because this gets brutal. Oh, God. So, look. Don't fuck around with hot guys. Yeah, no. I mean. These ones. Not these ones. Okay. He's too cute. It's too bad.

21:55So, look up Well Baby Clinic 1928, and just, like, let's have this in the back of our minds as we're going through the story. So, when I say buckle up, I mean seatbelt, helmet, emotional support beverage. You're going to need all of them. Unless you're doing dry January and, like, a nice green tea. Maybe something relaxing. Cam and meal. But get something because this takes a hard left turn into tragedy. Okay. So, Alice and Carlos are doing the whole transnational bohemian thing.

22:29New York, Havana vibes, drama, no money, lots of feelings. And in 1926, Alice gives birth to her first child, a daughter named Santiana. And for a brief, brief moment, it looks like maybe this will all stabilize things. She's a mother. She's painting. Things are going well. She's trying to hold it together. And then reality said, absolutely not. Santa Nia dies of diphtheria before she even turns one. And just like that, gone. Oh, okay. Oh, shit. I mean, there's no way to, like, overstate how devastating this

23:04was for Alice. Like, she's shattered completely. And the loss cracks something open her in her that never fully closes again. And if that weren't enough, Carlos, already unstable and pulling away because he's dealing with it, and however he can, becomes increasingly distant. He comes from a very wealthy Cuban family. And they're kind of like, we don't understand what you're doing with this lady. Like, we don't. Like, why? Oh, my God. Okay. So he's just, like, not even.

23:36I'm like, dude, I'm trying to mourn. Your family's being weird. Yeah. Can we do this together? Well, I guess worse. So then they have a second daughter, Isabetta, in 1928. And you think, okay, maybe, like, we're healing the daughter. We got this. We got this. We have our baby. Yeah, rainbow baby. And we're on the up and up. No. But instead of this bringing them back together, it accelerates their departure from one another.

24:06Okay. Carlos leaves Alice and takes Isabetta with him. No. Yes. Yeah. Oh, different. Okay. No toxic shared custody. No gentle transition. Just abandonment with a capital A where I'm taking the baby. Steals your baby. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Yeah. So. What the? Okay. Different. If you look at the painting, you can see babies being changed all over the place. Faces just riddled with anxiety. The whole scene just looks very intense and chaotic. But then you zero in on a mother and her child on the front left.

24:41And this child is noticeably gray compared to the other babies. Presumably the daughter she lost. Already we can see her ability to capture the complex nature of raw dog in life. It's intense. She gets it. And she has the capability of communicating it visually. Yeah. Yeah. This painting is horrific. It's horrible. So if you're on Patreon, we're going to show you the painting. Yeah. And we're going to react to it. But like, yeah, it's horrific.

25:12So now Alice is in New York alone grieving one dead child and then, like, also grieving being forcibly separated from her other child. She's broke, isolated, and emotionally obliterated. And, I mean, she wouldn't have had, like, very much recourse. Mothers were not, like, awarded custody at this time. That's not how it worked. Men were decision makers. And this is where her mental health just, like, absolutely nosedives. She spirals into a deep depression, attempts to unalive herself, and is hospitalized in a psych ward multiple times.

25:48Multiple times this happened. She was in and out, in and out, health care, mental health. So, and you know the 1920s, it's not, like, now, where it's, like, yoga, medication, nice retreat. No, this is, like, we're going to electric. We're seeing if you need to lobotomize you. Yeah, lobotomy. Will that help for your manic stuff? Oh, my God. I just had a thought about Mad Men, and I'm not going to bring it up.

26:18This is gross. 2026, no Mad Men references. No Mad Men references. Okay, but this period in her life is so important, because she's already interested in painting. She can't stop. And now she has these experiences, and she observes. She absorbs the pain, injustice, vulnerability, and power dynamics. This period imprints itself permanently into her work. The rawness, the refusal to sanitize suffering, the deep empathy for people living on the margins. This is not theoretical for her anymore. This is lived.

26:51And she's obsessed with painting. She feels like she can't stop something she has to do. It's not a choice. She sacrifices everything to keep her craft going through all this drama and throughout the rest of her life. So we'll see that as a constant theme. So she finally gets out of this fucking hospital in September 1931. After nearly 13 months of enforced rest, once she's released back into the wild, she promptly reinserts herself into her

27:23old social orbit, reconnecting with her friend Nadia Oljanova. And Nadia's Norwegian merchant marine husband, Egil Hoy, I'm destroying these names, now tucked away in sleepy Stockton, New Jersey. Okay. Naturally, because Alice's life never calms the fuck down, it was during one of these visits that she meets Kenneth Doolittle, a sailor. I have lived through Fleet Week in San Francisco. Giant red flag. I know, but the uniforms work for me. Yeah, no, they do something. Yeah, they do something to you.

27:56It's like, what? I don't agree with any of this. What is the uniform doing to me? I don't understand. Why do I feel these feelings? Yeah. Yeah, no, giant red flags. Me and Alice just connected. So, but Kenny was another problem, another walking red flag, like you said. Yeah, yeah. Doolittle had joined the merchant marines at 16, and somewhere between ports, picked up communism like a souvenir bag. So, except for him and for Alice. Okay. By early the following year, Alice and Kenneth were playing house

28:32in a Cornelia Street apartment in Greenwich Village, then the beating heart of Bohemia, where everyone was poor, brilliant, half-drunk, deeply convinced of their own importance. That's the vibe. It's like cafes buzzing, bars overflowing. Poor, drunk. Yes. You think you're the best. It's like the Jackson Pollock time, you know? Totally. I love it. That's the vibe. I want to go there for a day. Absolutely. Just take me back. We probably hate it. I'd be like, oh, thank God.

29:04Oh, thank God. We do not live in that time. Okay. Alice knew perfectly well that Doolittle came with issues. The biggest one being a drug habit and a jealousy streak, wide enough to qualify as a whole-ass personality disorder. Yeah. Yeah. So, she said, I lived with a sailor, a rather interesting chap, nice enough except that he liked dope. He had a coffee can full of opium. A coffee can full of opium. Damn. Actually sitting around their apartment like you do. I mean, Alice, come on.

29:38He's learned some stuff on the sea. I mean, Alice is like fresh off a nervous breakdown. And she's like, oh, yeah, this guy. This is the one. So, her picker is broken. I get it. Yeah. Aquarius, as we go for interesting people sometimes, stay away. Don't do it. Have fun with them. Yeah. No, don't take them out. Don't live with them. Don't live with that. They have a giant coffee can full of opium. Don't live with them. I think one of her things and Aquarius, we fall into this trap is like she

30:15wants to experience life unfiltered. Do it for the plot. Do it for the plot. Do it for the autobiography. Yeah. Do it for this moment right here. She knows he's bad. Give them something to talk about. Yeah. She knows he's bad. He is bad with a capital B. It gets so much worse. Okay, so he's just like on opium with opium people and friends. Yeah. Yeah. Getting high. Yeah. Okay. In May of 1932, Alice showed work at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit.

30:47Essentially like an art fair surrounded out, like founded out of desperation by Jackson Pollock, who was broke and hoping passerbys might buy something, anything. Alice exhibited Well Baby Clinic. And at the same exhibition, she meets John Rothschild, you know, the family. So Harvard educated, independently wealthy, immediately. That are still in charge of everything. He loved her work. He invited her and Doolittle over for drinks and quietly positioned himself as like, hey, I'm Mr. Reliable. I'm your savior. In this disaster situation. So back at Cornelia Street, the Neil Doolittle relationship was not

31:23going great. It's reaching like an operatic climax. So in December 1934, Doolittle just goes fucking crazy in a jealous frenzy and destroys roughly 60 paintings. Not her work. And 200 works on paper. Yeah. He also burns her clothes, bringing the whole like go big or go home vibe of terrible men to a whole other level. Alice later recalls fleeing the apartment in fear for her life. Totally. Describing the episode as an act of pure male domination, less about another man and more about her art

31:56daring to exist without his permission. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's when they go for the work, man. I've heard my shit. Just like not this stuff. Not this corner of the house. But it brings up the question of like, are you jealous of John? Are you jealous of like my like my dedication? Yeah. Yeah. Well, being with an artist, like a true artist, you have to make space for their obsession with art. Yeah. They're not normal. Like they can't do that. They can't turn it off.

32:30They have to be like, wake up at 3 a.m. like Chelsea does and make work and shit like that. Yeah. And you just have to be okay with it because you. And you're fine. We don't bother you. We don't understand that. Yeah. We're not going to bother you. We're just going to be in our little cave and don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah. But some people can't handle it. They can't handle, you know, that sitting in the room.

33:00They can't be a third wheel to art. I think too, when you're in these kind of communities, it's like, oh, how, how much more dedicated to my craft am I in than you? Or like, are, are you threatened by my talent? Or like, are you just threatened that I spend time with this thing? I feel like he might be more stimulating than you are. Oh my God. And the male ego at this time is like insane.

33:31So I'm sorry that I'm stimulated by something else. That's not a human. That's like coming from my own self. Yes. Yeah. And they hate that. They hate that. Well, the good ones are totally chill with that and they don't even care at all. But the bad ones will always have some kind of, oh, you're working on yourself. Oh, okay. Okay. And give you little comments and make it feel weird. And yeah. Stay away from it. Well, the bad ones are always going to try and separate so that they

34:07control. Your entire life. And he clearly cannot handle it. So. Yeah. So Alice is like homeless after this and shaken clearly. And she turns to Rothschild. So exactly what you didn't want. Do little. You drove her to the other dude. Yeah. Bye. Bye. This guy will actually fucking fund my shit, dude. Oh my God. But this one actually is funny. So his parents help bankroll her living situation. John's still married with children to another lady. But he's like obsessed with Alice.

34:41He can't. He's like. He wants something serious. And Alice is like. You're like healthy. Like a healthy amount of in love with me. Absolutely not. She's openly unimpressed with his performance in bed. Oh. So that's probably like a huge factor. She's like. That wasn't good. Not doing it for me. Yeah. That wasn't good. Eventually she walks away choosing solitude over selling yourself short. She's not in love with him. Fine. Yeah. Yeah. But she does paint them.

35:12So look up Alice and John in the bathroom. Alice and John. In the bathroom. Okay. And this is cute. I mean in 1935 she depicts the pair post coitus both urinating. Alice is on the toilet. John standing at the sink with an erect penis in his hand. Trying to figure it out. At the time they're like what the fuck is this painting? Like you can't paint this painting. This is porn. But later. This is so good. Yeah. It's so honest right? I mean we've all been there.

35:48Well it's just all those movies where they fuck and then you're. Go to the bathroom girlfriend. Don't get a UTI. We don't like cranberry juice. It doesn't taste good. No matter what ladies. Go to the bathroom. Do it. Even if you don't have to go you're going to squeeze that a little bit. Cran vodka does not help. CSA. Fucking go to the bathroom. Don't be like the movies and snuggle right after. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

36:21Go pee. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm like yeah clean up. Get all the pubes out of here. That's what they're doing. Like that's the nasty after the nasty. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Cleaning up. Yeah. Cleaning up your stuff. Cleaning up. So. Alice continues exhibiting. She enrolls. She is really cool. She enrolls in the New Deal art program that would have paid the unthinkable sum of $30 a week. But still she's getting paid to paint. There you go.

36:52She painted. Yeah. And she's at this point investigating poverty. Living in poverty. Yeah. Let me see. Do as the impressionists do. Start painting the. Start painting your people. Start painting your. Your. Your situation. And not all these famous people that can pay for portraits. Yeah. This painting is. I can't wait. Again. It'll be on Patreon. But yeah. No. This is. Yeah. This is the. This is the time after. Not a lot of people depict that. And there is a little bit.

37:26This is where we're like. Okay. I mean. This is where she's saying like. It wasn't that bad. You did really good. It's. Yeah. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Yeah. No. It's fine. It's fine. So that's that conversation right now. In this painting. Of like. No worries. Like. I'm fine. I can figure it out later. I'll figure it out later. If you just leave the bathroom really quick. I'm trying. Figure it out right now. I'll figure it out right now.

37:59Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. So. So by the mid thirties. Alice is like full on painting nudes. Unapologetic. Unsanitized. And deeply confrontational paintings. Women weren't supposed to do that. And Alice did it anyway. Lovers appeared. Clothes vanished. And idealization nowhere to be found. So now. Let's look at one of her early works. Called Ethel Ashton. 1930. And this is not your soft focused. Dreamy idealization of the female form. No. Yeah. Neil's portrait of her friend Ethel.

38:31A classmate from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. It's raw. It's uncomfortable. It's deeply personal. And intentionally awkward. Instead of like. Making her all hot and stuff. She paints her all like crouched. And a little off kilter. Looking straight at the viewer. So you can't escape those big, huge, soulful eyes. That seem to say. Yes. I exist. And I feel things. The body's exaggerated. Heavy thighs. Pendulous breast. Even described as Neil herself as a woman.

39:03Almost apologizing for living. Burdened by the furniture she carries around her own body. Ooh. And then when. So this painting does not get shown until 43 years after it was painting. Painted. And critics and the public were like very uncomfortable with it. When it finally gets shown. Instead of applauding its psychological insight. Many people dismissed it for defying how the female nude is supposed to look. And Ethel herself was like pretty pissed about the painting.

39:35She's like. This is not fluttering of me at all. She apparently. She reportedly stormed out of the exhibition when it was shown. But like. Listen. This is why it's important to show squishy weird bodies in the media. Look down. Which she weird bodies are okay. They exist everywhere. And that's what it is. Yeah. It is what it is. That's what you have. Yeah. Most of us are going to have a little bit of a fluff.

40:06It's not supposed to be. Yeah. Like. You know. Conventionally pretty. And that's why it makes it so good. She also just has this way of capturing. An immense amount of vulnerability. And presence. Yeah. In this lady. So. And her face kind of looking up. Like. Like. She's almost like. Here it is. I mean. And this is like a radical commitment at this point. To reality over idealization. And that's not like happening anywhere.

40:36So. We love it. We love it. We love it. And we love it. Okay. So. This is awesome. So. After hospitalizations. After Carlos. After losing a child. After being separated from this other child. Alice does not bounce back in a cute like. Redemption arc way. There's no montage. There's no glow up. This is just survival. She's. Yeah. Rogue. She's politically radicalizing. She's emotionally raw. And she's still living. That New York City artist life. She paints constantly. Paintings like this one.

41:09And they're just stacked in her apartment. Hundreds. She cannot stop. And. Let's see. So. Alice is painting some of the most psychologically daring portraits in America. And the art world is just like. Meh. Yeah. Abstract expressionism is about to take over. So big gestures. Macho energy. Heroic canvases. And Alice. She's over here painting pregnant ladies. And like unemployed men. And people. Trying children. Tired neighbors. People whose lives are written all over their faces. And critics are just not impressed.

41:40It's not in vogue. Galleries are not interested. She is deeply out of fashion before she is ever in fashion. So in the mid 1930s. She joins the work progress administration. Like the WPA federal art project. Along others. Like to Kooning and Pollock. And like this is how all of them stayed afloat at that time. Yeah. The New Deal era baby. And the government is like. What if we paid artists not to starve? Like let's bring that back. Yeah. But and Alice. So she's still being funded. But people just don't get it.

42:14They're not ready. Yeah. At one point I think there's like. A quote of something like. Is it even okay to be a portrait artist? At this point all the portrait artists are like. Why? Doesn't anybody like me? Am I ever going to be in vogue again? Totally. Totally. This is kind of the same deal. Like Lucian Freud was dealing with. Yeah. When he was hanging out with Bacon of like. Does this relevant anymore? Or do we need to do something totally different with the body?

42:45Or are we never going to have representational art ever again? Right. Like that's kind of where they were. Is that not art anymore? Is it just gone? Like we're just over. Okay. We're not doing this anymore. But like that's the thing that marks a true artist. Is they have an obsession that they can't shake. They don't. We're not worried about it. We are not stylizing to what other people want. This is what I have to say. And I can't stop saying it.

43:16This is just. It didn't. It didn't. I didn't choose it. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I didn't choose it. It chose me. Like. And that's where she's at. I have to do these portraits. Yeah. I can't. I can't do anything. Like when. When our teachers were like. You guys should really do abstract. Of like. Yeah you're old. You can't just like do that. You're fucking old dude. Like. Okay. Back in the 50s. When you were cool. Like they. They don't want to do figurative. But like.

43:47No. Like. We're going to do. We're going to do this. We can't just turn it off and on. Yeah. We're not going to be abstract. For you. For you. Police. I don't want to. No. That's crazy. It gives me ickies. Absolutely not. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Well. So just when. Things are like. Starting to settle down again. We hop right back into it. Another boy. This bitch was all over the place. I love it. So. Here we go. Puerto Rican. Charismatic.

44:17Married. Nightclub singer. With enough drama in his vocal cords. To power the entire Lower East Side. Oh. These boys. Atlas. What is these boys? They're far away from. Singers. Soldiers. Anybody that's a fucking red flag. Say far away. Get yourself a. Get yourself the guy. The pharmacist. A pharmacist. Just that nice. No. She picks musician. Yeah. So she moves. With Jose. Moves in with Jose. They're in Spanish Harlem at this point. From Greenwich Village. That would have been like. Artistic suicide. Artistic suicide. Sorry. She moved from Greenwich Village to Spanish Harlem.

44:51And that's where she meets Jose. At the time. White artists were absolutely not doing that. Unless they were like lost. Slumming. Or writing something offensive. Because like. Not a lot of white people lived in this area. Okay. She moves there to belong. To observe. To paint people who are invisible to the art world. Yeah. And to continue her extremely messy love life. So. Yeah. In 1939. She gives birth to their son. Richard. Okay. And listen. This is huge. It's the first time she gets to actually raise her child.

45:23She's got her baby. She's got a baby. No one dies. Yeah. No one gets taken to another country. Got her baby. No one disappears into the mists of patriarchy. She becomes a mother. In a way that she never had a chance to before. And it changes her. But not like in a soft focus. Hallmark kind of way. Just like. And my life is hard. But now there's like love in the wreckage. Sort of. At least I have my baby. Yeah. At least I got my baby.

45:57Yeah. Jose however. Remains married. Does not leave his wife. Does not choose Alice. She just like exists in this liminal space of commitment, avoidance, and machismo. Which honestly. You're the second family. Yeah. You're the second family. Eventually the relationship dissolves. And she's still married too. Like she. She's. She might be progressive. But she's like. No. I'm not getting divorced. I'm going to get divorced. For what? No. I just. I feel like she just wants. She just wants her baby.

46:28Absolutely. At the end of the day. Yeah. Get for her baby. And then you can like. Meh. You can kind of. You can kind of go away if you want. My baby and my paintings. My baby. Give me my baby and my paintings. My baby and my paintings. So she's in Spanish Harlem. She's with Richard. She's painting her neighbors. This is where like Alice Neal that we know and love today emerges. Yeah. She paints pregnant women, children, like artists, queer people, Puerto Rican families, black intellectuals.

47:01People are not supposed to be the subject of important art at this time. And she paints them as they are. Tired, proud, bored, tender, anxious, sexy, aging, alive. No flattery. No cruelty. Just like radical, uncomfortable honesty. And. Yeah. She. People that are interviewed and asked about her. Or they will say that she had this like amazing way of getting under people's skin to expose their truest forms. Like when they're angry, upset, all of these things. Like she had a way of cracking into people to understand who they truly were.

47:36And it shows in all of the paintings. Totally. She doesn't just capture like a good portrait. It goes beyond that. So if you look up, she has a ton of famous people. Andy Warhol is one of them. And if you look at that portrait, I feel like he's done in a way that is so honest. Because as we found out in the Andy Warhol episode is like, though he was incredibly vain, he was also incredibly vulnerable. Yeah. And incredibly insecure.

48:08And it's all demonstrated in that painting. Totally. Yeah. I mean, I feel like she paints his face so beautifully and like almost kind of he's kind of serene. It's almost like angelic. Yeah. But then the body and the composition of everything being empty around him, like his body is clearly kind of distorted and the emptiness all around him is just like, oh, okay. So you're Mr. Beautiful, but nobody is around you and no one's going to experience your actual body or your

48:40actual who you really are. Exactly. That's like exactly it. It's so good. She gets it. She gets it. And this is she just does it over and over and over again. She can't stop. Okay, so after the Doolittle arson incident, the Rothschild P painting, the musician, Alice firmly decides that respectable men were not worth the trouble or the orgasm. She does not want any self-respecting, broke, radical artists. So then she falls in love with a communist intellectual and

49:10her Sam Brody. Okay. So Sam Brody was a Jewish intellectual, communist party organizer, an all-around serious man. Not a sailor, not a drug addict, not a jealous arsonist. He was like a philosopher kind of vibe. Exactly. Yeah. He was an intellectual, smart dude. They met through leftist circles because, of course, they did. And everyone was either organizing, arguing, or sleeping with each other like you do. As you do. Sam and Alice move in together. And listen, this relationship matters because he was the first person

49:45that took her art seriously and was constantly telling her how good it was and how valuable she is in a world where she's like not valued at all. Finally. He understood her as an artist. He respected her as an artist and he appreciated her as an artist. Ooh. So then, well, yeah, she likes that because she's constantly questioning herself. She's like, what the fuck am I doing? No one's buying this. Yeah. Nobody wants this. Am I wasting my time doing this?

50:19Yeah. So then she gives birth to their son, Hartley. Ooh. So this is her fourth child. Yeah. And he becomes the emotional center of her life. She's poor, exhausted, painting constantly, but now has these two small humans who she's determined to not to lose. And Richard and Hartley grow up in studios, apartments, political meetings, and the background of her canvases. So they must have seen some shit, these two kids. Yeah. Ooh. But Sam Brody's, like, also kind of a dick.

50:53Yeah. And this, you know, in theme with her life, he's a total asshole to her other son. He's physically abusive. He becomes emotionally abusive to Alice. And eventually this, like, all blows up and he leaves. So. Yeah. He abandons Alice, Richard, and Hartley, emotionally and financially, and drifts off into his political life while Alice is left in Spanish Harlem trying to raise these two kids with nothing. Yeah. So. Cool. Again, yeah, her picker's broken. Her picker's broken.

51:26Yeah. It's tricky with the intellectual guys. If the intellectual guys are thinking too much and then they start, they start layering too many things in their head and, and then they think that they know things that, that, that aren't true. Like, then there's weird jealousy of, like, you looked at him and you're like, yeah, because he's in front of me. So. It's okay. And they're like, no, I saw the same look.

51:56And then they, they'll, they'll get too fancy with it. And you're like, you're thinking too hard. And you're thinking too hard, friend. And you're getting yourself worked up. Oh my God. Stop thinking so much. Well, and I think he's just like incredibly arrogant, right? Totally. He's an arrogant, yeah. It's all about himself. And they're like, agree with each other by and large on a lot of things. Like, and no, he still needs to be right.

52:28I just wish you had the intelligence to regulate your emotions. So that takes smarts and intelligence. Right? Burn. Burn. At least I could do that. Like, so emotional. So emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a virtue. Absolutely. Get it. Get it down. I'm still working on it. Hey, me too. Me too. Me too. Me too. Oh, okay. But at this point, she's like hardened. Like, she's like, I don't need a man anymore.

52:58No. Absolutely not. No, thank you. And so the rest of her life is largely spent just like on herself painting. So many famous people. I mean, we have like Andy Warhol, like we said, Allen Ginsberg, Jackie Curtis, and then not famous people too. All of her neighbors, people in the community. Yeah. Anybody who will sit for her, she will paint. And she's described as the soul collector for that reason, because she understands the psychology of every person that she

53:32sits with. And she'll describe the experience as like they come and fill her up. And she almost embodies who they are while she's painting to the point of when they leave, she feels empty. Like, it's just like taken away from her. Like, the soul is like ripped out of her. So it'll be no surprise that Alice Neal, her political involvement becomes more and more visible as she's meeting all of these people. So even though politics had shaped her worldview for decades, and she was affiliated with leftist circles

54:09like Communist Party earlier in her life, it wasn't until the 60s and 70s, as she's gaining wider recognition, that her work is identified as aligning closely with emerging social movements. So rather than producing overt propaganda, she's practicing a deeply personal kind of politics by painting people whose lives embodied struggle, resistance, and social change. Yeah. And she's painting a lot of marginalized people, too, which people didn't really do. Exactly. Which, like, people didn't do. So she's very much connected to activists and the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam

54:47war movement, and all these... That's her jam. Yeah. Yeah. That's her jam. Because she's painting the organizers, the writers, all the political radicals, and treating them with the same seriousness, historically reserved for elites in portrait painting. So by doing that, she asserted that political engagement itself is, like, worthy of portraiture, and her sitters were often depicted in, like, a relaxed, psychologically, like, exposed kind of way, emphasizing their humanity rather than this, like, heroism, right? Like, this heroic, you need to be, like, strong, and blah, blah,

55:23blah, blah, blah. Like, no. Yeah. We're redefining that. We're reinforcing the belief that political change begins with real, imperfect people. Yeah. And it's the people's party. So it's just, like, you need to know the people that you're fighting for. And these are it, these normal people, not these, and I'm sure she's responding to some of the more, like, the Diego Rivera communist murals and things like that, when you're thinking of, oh, these guys, the people are

55:56these, of course, very hardworking, strong, big muscles, family people. And you're like, sure, there's those guys. Valid, valid, valid, valid, valid, valid. We love them. Yes. We love the hardworking people. But there's also mothers, people that can't work, people that have, people that are caregivers, people that are old, like, you know, everyone else, too. Right. Like, we don't need to fight for people because they're hardworking or because of their additive value.

56:26We need to fight for people because everyone goes through a similar human experience. Yeah. And that is valid. And everybody is valuable, no matter what, right? We're all humans here. Right. Like, we don't need to, like, prove worth. We're just all inherently on the same plane and have the same value just by existing. 100%. Ooh, she's so relevant today. Oh, my God. I love her. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, it's full contradictions at the same time because of the time

57:02that she is born in, she never fully transcends into, like, identifying as a feminist. Oh, okay. She's stuck in the, like, kind of... I don't want to be a feminist. Yeah. Like, it's the rejection of gender in art. Like, I don't want to be considered a female artist. I don't want to be considered a male artist. I just want to be considered an artist. So we're not quite in that, like, harnessing our value stage yet, right?

57:34Like, we're, like, still in the, like, no. Like, I'm... I'm a person first before I'm a woman. Exactly. Exactly. Of, like, yes. Yeah. We get it. Good intentions. We get it. We get it. Good intentions. So... Yeah. But regardless of her own mentality, she's still embraced as a feminist icon. Totally. And she did actively support the movement just by, like, her portraits of being of pregnant women, you know... Women. Yeah. Aging female bodies. That normal women. Yeah. And nude male figures.

58:06That all challenges patriarchal, ugh, patriarchal norms in art. Yeah. So Neal spoke openly about sexism in the art world. She positions herself for a lifelong commitment to figure painting as a political stance against both modernist fashion and marginalized, and the marginalization of women artists. Especially in this time, too, with all the macho Pollux and de Koonings out there that are veering away from portraiture. Even de Kooning was threatened... Yeah. ...when he was doing his woman series. Absolutely. ...which is, like, an anti-feminist series.

58:37He's such a dick. Oh, my God. But it's still a figure. It's still a figure. And they were like, don't do these figures, even though his woman series is the most popular series of things. Oh, yeah. Well, now... But back then, they were like, no, no, no, no, we're losing the figure. No, no, no, no. We're losing the figure now. We're losing the figure. He's like, I don't know if I want to totally lose it. I was like, I like it. But I like figuring.

59:10I like it. But yeah. He's a whole other onslaught and onset of issues. But yes, he was definitely her contemporary, for sure. Yeah. But so she also aligns herself with the LGBTQ plus visibility later in life. She paints gay men, couples, queer community, trans, all kinds of people. Yeah. Which was incredibly rare in mainstream art. So, I mean, talk about ahead of her time. Mm-hmm. Quite radical. And rather than dramatizing identity, she, like, normalizes it. So I feel like she's a good, you know, temperature of, like, yes, these people can be seen, like, outside

59:46the lines. But they're also just, like, that normal connectedness, that human piece, that human element. I think that how she handles the nude, too, is with, yeah, there could be some people that are sexy in there. Yeah. For sure. But, like, most of us are blobs. Like, most of us are blobs. Most of us are blobs. We're blobby. When we start getting older, or we're not as sexy, or maybe after a few kids, we'll start looking a little blob-ish. And, yeah, this needs to be shown.

1:00:19Absolutely. And it also is, you know, helping out the viewer, too, of, like, yeah, there's people that look like you. Representations, everything. Yeah. I know, so she even paints herself nude at 80, and I love it, because she's, like, you know, blobby, gloppy, hot, fucking oldie, and it's cute. It's, like, a totally cute painting. I would hang it in my house. Yes, I would. Here's your body. Yep. Expect this later on, ladies. Well, so recognition finally comes in the late 1970s, early 80s.

1:00:51Museums wake up. Critics backpedal. Well, everyone pretends they were paying attention the whole time. Yeah. We were not. Mm-hmm. And Alex accepts the praise with dry amusement. Like, yeah, obviously. I have, yeah, 100,000 fucking paintings for you guys to look at now. She's given, like, all these awards, and it's, there's this one speech, like, this, I forget what museum, it's, like, you know, giving her an award and recognition. And it's, like, a sea of white dudes, like, white old men.

1:01:22And the guy leading the speech is, like, please leave all your clapping or applause for the end of the speech. And then they say her name, Alice Neal, and everybody's just, like, yeah! Like, and she's laughing, and she stands up, and she's, like, we're not going to do what you tell us to. And it's such a good moment. So good. So good. She does get her moment. It's just, like, at the end of her life. And she dies in 1984, having outlived most of the men who underestimated her, survived grief that would have flattened

1:01:58others, and produced a body of work that is, like, so vast. There are fucking hundreds of these. Some really good quotes. So, for me, people come first. I have tried to assert the dignity and internal importance of the human being. I was a humanist, and that's what I see, and that's what I paint. Every person is a new universe, unique with its own laws, emphasizing some belief or phrase of life immersed in time and rapidly passing by. Good one. This is the best one.

1:02:30One of the reasons I painted was to catch life as it goes by, right hot off the griddle. Because when painting or writing are good, it's taken right out of life itself to my mind. Good one. Good one. Yeah. She's so good. I like her. And then we are doing Gorilla Girls on our Patreon. And we do talk about, the Gorilla Girls does talk about, don't expect, of benefits of a female artist, don't expect to be famous until you're about your 80s. Until you're old.

1:03:03Yeah. Until you're pretty old. So, yeah. And one of them goes by the, like, you know, one of their aliases is Alice Neal. By the pseudonym. The pseudonym, Alice Neal. Yeah. Yeah. So, check out our Patreon for Gorilla Girls. Yes. We love our girls. We do. We do. Who is she? Who is she? I feel like we're, like, running out of celebrities. So, this might be a cycle. So, this might be a little desperate here. Alice Neal, I feel like Billie Eilish. Okay. Yeah. No, totally.

1:03:35Totally. You don't. I feel like they're, like, the walking, like, you don't need to smile or make anybody comfortable to be iconic. Like, Alice Neal painted people, like, she had x-ray vision and zero patience for pretending, showing sagging skin, awkward limbs, emotional turmoil, all that. And Billie Eilish does something similar. It's just, like, whispery vocals, baggy clothes. Yeah. And bass that's, like, very anxiety driven. Like, I definitely get anxiety when I listen to her music. Yes. Instead of hiding vulnerability, she amplifies it, singing about dread, fame, self-loathing, while she's dressed like she's actively avoiding

1:04:12being perceived. Like, very Neal energy. Love it. Yeah. I remember when she first came out and she was, you know, getting asked about the baggy clothes. And she, you know, she's just commenting, like, I don't want to do this again. I don't want another. She said something in the terms of, like, I don't want another musician, again, to be scrutinized for their bodies. Yeah. I don't want you guys to see my body yet. And I'm also a teenager, so I don't need you guys to see my body yet.

1:04:46Yeah. And then she's since come out in, like, you know, like, you know, stereotypical Hollywood clothing and, like, done the thing. And done the thing. But it's just, like, this ownership of her own body of, like, it's mine. I'm going to do what I want. It's mine. It's not yours. I'm also very young. And I don't need to be sexualized by you. And you're gross. You guys have destroyed Britney Spears. Oh, my God. Like, why can't I just be a singer, a teen singer?

1:05:18Yes. And you guys don't worry about my body for right now. No, not right now. You don't need to see it. Until I'm ready for you guys to worry about it. Yes. And I think, too, as a lady, you know, she's a lady with a big-breasted lady. I think that would have been a topic of conversation if she didn't. Absolutely. If she wasn't pretty much, like, forced to wear fucking these giant clothes. She's hiding her giant titties, you guys. And she doesn't want you to focus on it.

1:05:51No. You don't need to see it. She wants you to focus on your talent. We're undoing this. You're not going to see my tits. No. Totally. Until I want you to see them. Yeah. And I love that. A million percent. I love that. I love that. Yeah. And not only that, she is totally revolutionizing what a pop singer is supposed to be. Oh, my God. She got there. She went above getting there. Talking against the bad guys. Yes. I love she had one speech where she's like, thank you for the award,

1:06:25blah, blah, blah. Billionaires shouldn't be billionaires. So just throwing that out there. Can you give your money away? Thank you. Yeah. Like, she's like, totally on the right side. She's on the right side. Love her. 100%. Yeah. No, she's doing the thing. We like her. Good one. No, I like it. Good one. Yes. I mean, Alice Neal is everywhere. You can't go into any, like, important museum without them having at least one of her work. Her highest selling work at auction to date is Dr.

1:06:56Finger's Waiting Room in 1966. Dr. Finger's. Sold over $3 million at Christie's. Still not enough. Not high enough. Okay. Not high enough. Not high enough. Not high enough. Not high enough. Compared to Jackson Pollock's $140 or whatever million dollars. Stupid. Stupid piece. Anyway. And she is always, I do like that she is, every time there's a conversation of figurative art, we're talking Alice Neal. Yes. I guess. Oh, my God. But, like, she's on the forefront of all of these guys. Yes. I also want to get into some more portrait artists, too.

1:07:30Definitely Chuck Close is coming soon. Oh, my God. So, this is extremely problematic. So, Chuck Close. And Nasty Boy. So, Chuck Close, she actually has, he has an interview. So, one of the movies you've got to see is, like, Alice Neal. It's a documentary made by her sons and grandson and talking about their experience of, like, you know, being her son. And it's. Yeah. Living this life. Yeah. But Chuck Close is in, is interviewed for it. Yeah. And he says when he, he has met Alice Neal and he said, hi, I'm Chuck Close.

1:08:05And she said, oh, God, I don't like your work. He said, oh, that's interesting because I'm, like, a big fan of your work. Like, she's like, oh, well, then I'm not, in that case, I'll have to, I'll have to give it another look. I'll have to give it another look. Yeah. But that was just her. She was, like, brutally honest and just, like, fuck you. Yeah. Especially to Chuck Close, dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. I don't like your work, actually. I don't care.

1:08:37So, yeah, that's our girl. You nasty. Good one. You nasty, Alice. I like her. Do it. And do it for the plot, I guess. Be careful. Do it for the biography. But be careful. Yeah, do it for the story, for sure. There are some times where you're like, you know what? This guy's bad. She had to know. She had to know. Those boys were bad news. She couldn't help it. Like a mock to a flame. Yeah. Where you're just like, okay, this guy's going to ruin my life.

1:09:09Oh. So cute, though. So hot. But you got to know. You got to know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. You will get hurt. You will get hurt. Yeah. It's not good. Know that. Know that. But it might make some good paintings out of it or good music or whatever you do. Good one. We're hardcore on Patreon. We got our family tea, our last holiday family tea episode up.

1:09:40So check that out. We've got Gorilla Girls up. So check that out. Of course, this will be on Patreon in a couple days. So check that out if you want to see the pictures. Yes. With all of these. But if you can't do any of that, that's true. Totally fine. Chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. We're coming back. We have a huge one next time for you guys. Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Another bitch, too. Yeah, love it. Thank God. Because we're the broke bitches here.

1:10:12What the fuck are we talking about these boys for? No boys. Oh. There will be some more boys, but probably very problematic ones. Per usual. Per usual. But if you can't do any of that stuff, that's cool. Totally fine. Just. Just keep listening. Wow. We love you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

1:10:43Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.