Many significant artists and thinkers sat for Alice Neel, including actor and civil rights activist Hugh Hurd (1925–1995), depicted here in a slick, green blazer with stylish jewelry. Between starring in films, Hurd led the first movement for labor equity among African American actors in New York. Neel, a lifetime New Yorker, dedicated herself to painting portraits with respect and emotional complexity, describing portraiture as a form of “writing history.”