Irene Neal

{{Short description|American painter}}

{{use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}

Irene Neal is an American painter. She graduated from Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1958.{{cite web |title=Irene Neal, About the Artist |url=http://theartguide.com/gallery_artist/1147/irene-neal |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327224843/http://theartguide.com/gallery_artist/1147/irene-neal |archive-date=27 March 2014 |accessdate=20 September 2015 |website=The Art Guide}} She was a member of the New New Painters, a group of artists brought together by the first curator of modern and contemporary art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Dr. Kenworth Moffett (1934–2016) in 1978,{{Cite news |last=Melanson |first=Jim |date=10 November 2001 |title=Artsmart |pages=31 |work=New York Daily News |id={{ProQuest| }}}} contemporaneously with the further development of acrylic gel paint as developed by the paint chemist Sam Golden.{{Cite web |date=March 1998 |title=Sam Golden, Paintmaking Pioneer and Founder of Golden Artist Colors Passes Away at 82 |url=https://www.goldenpaints.com/justpaint/jp5article1.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070417130802/http://www.goldenpaints.com/justpaint/jp5article1.php |archive-date=17 April 2007 |access-date= |website=Golden Paints}}

Kenworth Moffett suggested, "Irene Neal works in the tradition of large size, free form abstraction, originating with Jackson Pollock, the Abstract Expressionists, and the Color Field Painters".{{cite web |last=Moffett |first=Kenworth W. |title=Irene Neal |url=http://kenworthwmoffett.net/writings/irene-neal |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019022001/http://kenworthwmoffett.net/writings/irene-neal |archive-date=19 October 2021 |accessdate=20 September 2015 |website=Moffett's Artletter 2.0 |publisher=}} Reviewing Neal's work for The New York Times, William Zimmer wrote: "Neal favors amorphous formats that resemble liquid drops, and often she creates a sheen like that of semi-precious stones."{{Cite news |last=Zimmer |first=William |date=29 December 1995 |title=A Dozen 'New New' Painters And a Sculptor, Too |pages=15 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331|id={{ProQuest| }}}} Donald Kuspit, in reviewing Neal's paintings in 2021, stated that in her paintings there is "fresh, newborn colors and exciting, impassioned rhythms of color—a glorious symphony of eternally fresh colors..."{{Cite web |last=Kuspit |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Kuspit |date=April 2021 |title=Donald Kuspit on Elated Abstraction: Irene Neal's Paintings |url=https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/abstraction-irene-neal-s-paintings/4929 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220925015520/https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/abstraction-irene-neal-s-paintings/4929 |archive-date=25 September 2022 |access-date=6 June 2023 |website=Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art |language=en}}