“Art is two things,” said Alice Neel. “A search for a road, and a search for freedom.” Born in 1900 in rural Pennsylvania, Neel always knew she wanted to be an artist. At art school she rejected refinement and aimed for realism in her work. Indeed, she was one of the first artists hired by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Neel’s nudes subverted the norm by presenting a radical female gaze. In the first Italian retrospective dedicated to her work, Pinacoteca Agnelli showcases Neel’s six-decade career, framing her as a “chronicler of life,” and a painter who broke with the niceties of portraiture. —Maggie Turner