Alice Neel was an exceptional American painter of the twentieth century and a trailblazer among women artists. Her forte was portraiture, where she skillfully captured the essence of friends, family, lovers, poets, and strangers, using an expressionistic mix of line and color, psychological insight, and emotional intensity. While her strong style and extraordinary perspective made her one of the greatest American portraitists of the twentieth century, her personal life was fraught with tension. In Richard and Hartley, one of only two double portraits of her sons, Neel paints her two sons: on the viewer’s right, eleven-year-old Richard, Neel’s son with José Santiago Negrón; and on the viewer’s left, nine-year-old Hartley, Neel’s son with Sam Brody. Neel paints the boys with a great frankness as they stare beyond the viewer with an absent-mindedness and solemnity that seems uncanny for subjects so young. At the time of the painting, Richard was being physically abused by Hartley’s father, Sam Brody, as was Neel, a fact which did not stop her from seeing him. The somber tone of the painting is furthered by the muted blues and reds Neel employs. Despite the hardship, both Richard and Hartley have spoken of their mother with love and respect following her death in 1984.