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Ginny with the Yellow Hat

Painting of a light-skinned young woman with big blue eyes wearing a yellow knit cap with a puffball. She stares directly at the viewer, unsmiling with tight lips, her long fingers clutching at the fuzzy black coat she also wears.

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  • Painting of a light-skinned young woman with big blue eyes wearing a yellow knit cap with a puffball. She stares directly at the viewer, unsmiling with tight lips, her long fingers clutching at the fuzzy black coat she also wears.

Date:

1971

Artist:

Alice Neel
American, 1900-1984

About this artwork

Alice Neel’s evocative, subversive, and psychologically driven portraits have gained increasing recognition after her death. She brought a loquacious expressionism to each of her subjects—a diverse group of artists, intellectuals, and political leaders of the national Communist Party, as well as family and neighbors in Spanish Harlem. This portrait’s subject is the artist’s daughter-in-law, Ginny Neel, who was painted here at the age of twenty-seven. She sits nervously for the artist, her long, bony fingers and hunched shoulders embody a tense nervousness, and her cloche and winter coat imply that she was stopped on her way in. Neel had spent the previous winter in California with her son Hartley and Ginny, who were gifted the portrait upon its completion.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Alice Neel

Title

Ginny with the Yellow Hat

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1971

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

101.6 × 73.7 cm (40 × 29 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Hartley and Richard Neel

Reference Number

1994.543

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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