Acquisition News: McNay Art Museum

The Estate of George McNeil and Picture Theory are delighted to announce the McNay Art Museum’s acquisition of George McNeil’s Occasion, 1966. This poetic painting of a dancer comes from a significant transitional period from pure abstraction to figurative associations. Many thanks to Rebekah Kim (Picture Theory) and René Paul Barilleaux (McNay) for their interest in McNeil’s work and facilitating this important acquisition.

Picture Theory exhibition curator Kara Carmack writes on the work of this period:
"McNeil enjoyed a late career renaissance as critics found affinities in these paintings with German Expressionism, COBRA, Jean Dubuffet’s art brut, and more contemporary developments in Neo-Expressionism and graffiti art. Yet, McNeil’s “figural images” exude a personal, empathetic, and passionate warmth unique to an artist dedicated to articulating the complexities of our inner and outer worlds. His forceful compositional choices, singular color palette, and virtuosic application of paint evidence an artist passionately driven by the endless pursuit of plastic expression."

This work will join McNeil’s Bather #28, already in the McNay’s Collection: https://collection.mcnayart.org/objects/21729/bather-28

Occasion, 1966, oil on canvas, 80 x 64 in (203.2 x 162.6 cm)