Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Marxist Girl (Irene Peslikis)
Alice Neel American
Not on view
An especially imposing and striking portrait, Marxist Girl (Irene Peslikis) depicts a member of the new generation of revolutionaries that Neel began to paint in the early 1970s—feminists, to be more exact. Neel’s relationship with second-generation feminism was sometimes strained (she disagreed on issues such as the primacy of gender over class and the overt demonization of men), but she nonetheless supported—and was supported by—the movement, at whose vanguard sat artist and activist Irene Peslikis (1943–2002). Equally committed to economic and gender equality, Peslikis is shown leaning back in a chair. One arm reaches above her head, exposing her unshaved armpit, while her right leg hangs over an armrest, forcing her legs apart. With very few exceptions, only Neel’s male sitters (and some of her female nudes) project this much bravado and audacity.
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