Description

Jackie Curtis (on the right), was a performer, writer, and singer, active in New York City’s downtown counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, and part of Andy Warhol’s creative orbit. In this double portrait Alice Neel depicts Curtis, who was gender nonconforming, together with Ritta Redd, a friend with whom he sometimes collaborated. Typical for Neel, the personalities of her sitters are evident in this painting. Notably, Curtis takes center stage in the image, positioning his body to cast Redd in its shadow. Neel once commented that when “portraits are good art they reflect the culture, the time and many other things.”