Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Max White
Alice Neel American
Not on view
Max White derives from a distinctive moment in the evolution of Neel’s style, when her controlled brushwork, frontal compositions, stylized figures, and shallow depth of field demonstrated the influence, perhaps, of American "folk" art, very much in vogue among modern artists in the 1930s. "Max White" was the pseudonym for author Charles William White, part of Neel’s circle in the progressive community of Greenwich Village, where she lived between late 1931 or early 1932 and 1938. Near the end of her life, Neel commented on the resemblance of her painted representation of White to Olmec sculptures from ancient Mexico, which she might have seen in books and exhibitions devoted to Nelson Rockefeller’s collection, now part of The Met. Neel might also have encountered the colossal Olmec head that was brought to New York on the occasion of the 1964–65 World’s Fair.
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