Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Joe Gould
Alice Neel American
Not on view
One of Neel’s most outrageous paintings from the 1930s, this nude portrait of Joe Gould (1889–1957) shows the eccentric and notorious fixture of Greenwich Village’s bohemian scene seated and flanked by two additional partial standing views of his naked body. Returning the viewer’s gaze directly while smiling, Gould, author of the storied, never-completed "Oral History of Our Time," inexplicably possesses three tiers of uncircumcised penises. This combination causes Gould to appear particularly menacing and lecherous. (He reportedly unsuccessfully pursued—even harassed—Black American sculptor Augusta Savage.) Neel’s coarse technique befits her subject, and the painting’s graphic nature caused it to be effectively censored from public view until 1973.
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