NARRATOR:

Here’s Geoffrey Hendricks — he’s the guy in the green sweater:

GEOFFREY HENDRICKS:

So I still have the sweater and have Brian’s shirt tucked away somewhere. And there was one marvelous, intense sitting. And she roughed in our faces—she spent a lot of time focusing on faces. And she wanted us back.

ALICE NEEL:

And they would come, they’d have their dinner, they’d get to my place at 9 o’clock at night, I did it out in the kitchen with artificial light.

HENDRICKS:

And when we got back there, she had this bowl of bananas and avocado — sitting on the table in front of us with a little chuckle, and thought that would be kind of fun for a queer couple, two gay men, that she was painting.

NEEL:

They promised to pose nude for me too. I’ve never seen a happier couple.

HENDRICKS:

If people were a couple and were together, she really wanted to paint both of them, because she worked with the dynamics between individuals as well as probing into the personality of each person. And it was one of the amazing strengths of her work and her ability to paint.

NARRATOR:

Alice Neel was known for making painfully honest portraits. Hendricks says a friend warned him about this —

HENDRICKS:

… saying you know, Geoffrey, how could you dare let Alice paint you? … I’d be terrified of what she would probe in and find there within my face. I loved—loved being painted and sitting for her and getting to know her. And, felt in the process of the painting of us, we became closer, stronger friends.