The Barbican’s much anticipated new exhibition puts an influential but largely undervalued artist firmly in her place as one of the most important portrait painters of the 20th century. Born in 1900, Alice Neel painted figuratively in New York during a period in which it was deeply unfashionable to do so. ‘One of the reasons I painted was to catch life as it goes by, right hot off the griddle… the vitality is taken out of real living,’ she said.

The largest UK exhibition of Neel’s work to date presents paintings spanning her 60-year career alongside archival material, including photography, letters and film. Crowned the ‘court painter of the underground’, she favoured subjects who were unfamiliar in art, among them pregnant women, queer performers, and Black and Puerto Rican children.

You’ll see these alongside portraits of famous faces including Joe Gould, Sam Brody and Frank O’Hara, and intimate depictions of friends, lovers and neighbours. No matter the subject, Neel painted with an untrammelled energy that reveals the humanity of her subjects.

Largely unrecognised for her work during her lifetime, Neel has since come to be championed for the candour with which she looked at the world. At last, it seems she is finally getting the widespread institutional recognition she deserves. Run, don’t walk.