Object numberEL2022.1

Futility of Effort

Date1930

Artist Alice Neel (American, 1900-1984)

CultureAmerican

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions26 x 24 in. (66 x 61 cm)
Framed: 27 1/2 x 25 1/2 in. (69.9 x 64.8 cm)

Credit LineCollection of Anne (Hogan) McNamara, class of 1969

Period20th c

Classification(s)

Painting

SignedOn recto BRC: A. Neel 1930

Catalogue raisonnéNE.40317

Label TextAlice Neel was a pioneer among women artists and one of the most important American painters of the twentieth century. Her subject matter included landscape and still life but usually centered on depictions of people with a humanistic approach and style that was distinctively her own. As a single mother, who was at times afflicted by poverty, Neel was interested in making visible the fraught psychological challenges of motherhood and her work often reflected her own personal experiences. This painting, with its minimal composition in comparison to her other work, was made in response to the death of her first daughter, Santillana, who was born in 1926 and died less than a year later of diphtheria. In 2021, this work was featured in Alice Neel: People Come First at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the artist’s first museum retrospective in New York.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu