r works from this period remain, however, for in 1934, a man with whom she was living destroyed hundreds of paintings and drawings. Two sons were born in 1939 and 1941. Finally in the 1960s, sixty year old Neel began to receive national attention. A major retrospective of her portraits was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1974, and in 1976 she was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. President Jimmy Carter awarded her with a National Women's Caucus for Award in 1979.Alice Neel's 1978 Margaret Evans Pregnant is an arresting portrait of a mother-to-be carrying twins--and a picture of its time Ann Temkin There was probably only one thing the portraitist Alice Neel (1900-84) relished more than the chance to paint a person in the nude--the chance to paint a nude person pregnant. Formally interesting, art historically exceptional, psychologically complex, socially audacious--what could be more fun for this seasoned painter and provocateur? But even in the adventuresome 1970s, it was not easy to persuade such a subject to pose naked. Margaret Evans's willingness had the happy result of a rich and wonderful painting, which can be seen in the Neel retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art from the 29th of next month through September 17. Neel painted Evans, then 33 and pregnant with twins, over three summer days in 1978. At the time, Evans was working in the population office of the Ford Foundation. She is the wife of John Evans, an artist Neel met in 1968, at a show of her paintings at New York's Graham Gallery. A decade later, when Neel heard that Margaret was about to have twins, she couldn't pass up the opportunity. She got on the phone and invited the mother-to-be to pose. Neel had been fortunate enough only once before to paint a woman pregnant with twins, and that was her own daughter-in-law, Nancy Neel. Evans made arduous bus trips...
