Date of Award
Spring 5-19-2017
Document Type
Capstone (Restricted Access)
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Visual & Performing Arts; College of Arts & Sciences
First Advisor
Elizabeth Ferrell
Abstract
This thesis focuses primarily on Alice Neel's complicated relationship with the time period that unveiled herself as an artist, second wave of feminism. One way in particular that shows how independent or ambivalent she was towards feminism is her portraits of pregnant women from the 1960s and 1970s. By comparing them to her earlier works of pregnant women or themes of maternity, it will prove that her opinion of pregnancy changed from the 1930s to the 1970s. It also aims to prove how these portraits defy the Western Tradition of the female nude, a goal that occupied feminist artists in their work. These portraits represent the complexity of Neel's relationship to feminism while also proving her long standing tradition of defying the Western Tradition.
Recommended Citation
Bye, Katie M., "Identity, Sexuality, and the Body: Alice Neel’s Pregnancy Series, 1964-1978" (2017). Senior Capstone Theses. 27.
https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/senior_theses/27