Richard Lang

Date1978

Maker Alice Neel American, 1900-1984

Label TextNeel painted portraits for sixty years. She sketched her compositions in bold outlines, then painted directly on the white grounds. Her observations of bodily and facial expression were acute. She once said, "I think that if I had not been an artist I could have become a psychiatrist--only I wouldn't have known what to tell them to do." The animated subject of this portrait is the late Seattle art collector Richard Lang, who posed in front of a large abstraction by Franz Kline.

Object number87.46

ProvenanceCommissioned from the artist by Richard E. Lang, Seattle, Washington, 1978; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1987

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Richard and Jane Lang Collection, Feb. 2 - Apr. 1, 1984. Cat. no. 35, reproduced p. 45. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Collection Highlights: 1945 to the Present, Sept. 12 - June 1, 1997. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, First Person Singular, May 31, 2001 - Mar. 17, 2002. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Frisson: The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Collection, Oct. 15, 2021 - Nov. 27, 2022. No cat. no., pp. 22, 28, 191, reproduced p. 29.

Credit LineGift of Jane Lang Davis

Dimensions50 x 35 in. (127 x 88.9 cm)

MediumOil on canvas