As Als writes in his
catalogue essay, itself a coarse gem of
memoir, criticism, and biography, Neel was drawn to the «drama of being,» and this drama often manifests not only in a sitter's expression, their history or a work's palette, but also in the paint itself.
Humphrey entered the lists
as the elusive obsession of Klaus Kertess (
as he tells us in a Candide - like
catalogue memoir) when the latter turned away from art history at Yale University to found the Bykert Gallery