I have a print of this painting on my bedroom wall and look at it every day. “ James Hunter, Black Draftee (1965 ) “ by Alice Neel.
The story behind the painting: Neel would often invite people in off the street to sit for her. James Hunter accepted, telling her he’d recently been drafted for the Vietnam War. leaving in days. He never showed up for his next sitting, so it remains unfinished.
Nobody knows what happened to James Hunter; his name isn’t on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial but there are many unfinished lives whose names didn’t make it on the wall.
The painting is huge in person, or at least my memory of it is. When I turned the corner at the Met Museum and saw it, on a wall by itself, I exhaled a huge breath. Was it fear or resignation in his eyes? Who would he be leaving behind and what part of himself would be be leaving behind?
The paintings unfinished state says so much. What does it mean to be complete, finished, in this country? Whose lives have been given value and whose lives are still considered fractions of others?
By what standard are any of us considered complete, and do we consider who made those rules? They are crafted by political, social, cultural and educational institutions created to exclude vast sections of the population and convince them that admittance will grant them personhood. This is not true. It only grants them ( us ) a low rung on a Sisyphean ladder that never ascends but instead allows us to look down at those on lower rungs and convince ourselves we’re rising. Buy this or wear that- these symbols of conspicuous capitalism -and you can pretend you’re complete, finished, you’re arrived at a destination that is exactly where you started, fresh paint hiding the same rust.
Alice Neel’s paintings now sell for millions. What’s the value of an unfinished life?
