Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd

Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd — Alice Neel. 1970.

Medium: oil on canvas. Dimensions: Framed: 154.3 x 108.9 cm (60 3/4 x 42 7/8 in.); Unframed: 152.4 x 106.4 cm (60 x 41 7/8 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Jackie Curtis (on the right), was a performer, writer, and singer, active in New York City’s downtown counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, and part of Andy Warhol’s creative orbit. In this double portrait Alice Neel depicts Curtis, who was gender nonconforming, together with Ritta Redd, a friend with whom Curtis sometimes collaborated. Typical for Neel, the personalities of her sitters are evident in this painting. Notably, Curtis takes center stage in the image, leaning in front of and casting a shadow over Redd. Neel once commented that when “portraits are good art they reflect the culture, the time and many other things.”

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.