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Pat Whalen
Alice Neel American
Not on view
In addition to bohemian writers and intellectuals in Greenwich Village, Neel painted portraits of Communist leaders and activists. Patrick B. Whalen (1884–1942) was a noted union organizer based in Baltimore whose activities and influence spread throughout the northeastern United States and beyond. With his large hands clenched into rocklike fists, Whalen appears like a boxer fighting for the proletariat. Neel depicts him leaning over a copy of the Daily Worker, the official publication of the Communist Party, which was headquartered nationally at the time near Union Square. A headline announces a strike planned for June 16, 1935, one that Whalen helped to organize. He was so closely associated with the Daily Worker that his critics mocked him as its "newsboy."
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