DAVID YEARSLEY is fascinated by the account of four composers who transformed their experiences of the second world war and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of art
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Rebel with a cause
CHRISTINE LINDEY explores the remarkable 20th century career of the finest female communist artist in the US
(L to R) Support the Union, 1937; Carmen and Judy, 1972
[Courtesy the estate of Alice Neel]
PETER MASON thrills to the sound of south London-born Yussef Dayes, and the galaxy of musicians drawn into his orbit
From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together
JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
Re-releases from Iain Matthews, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and The Charlie Daniels Band
JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
Alice Neel, “Hot off the Griddle”
Barbican Art Gallery, London
A NATURAL rebel, Alice Neel (1900-84) was born in Colwlyn, a staid Pennsylvania town which she said was “utterly beautiful in spring, but there was no-one to paint it.”
She wanted to be an artist from childhood but she had a placid, provincial upbringing in which her mother said: “I don’t know what you expect to do in the world, Alice. You’re only a girl.”
And as her family were not well-off, Neel became a secretary. But she insisted on studying art at night school and saved up to study at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women when she was 21 years old.
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