Alice Neel appeared to burst on the scene in the 1970s with her riveting portraits of public figures like a bare-chested and bandaged Andy Warhol after he had been shot by Valerie Solanis (1970), a towering portrait of a round-breasted Bella Abzug (1975), and later, New York City's then-mayor Ed Koch (1981). Despite being a regular in New York City's art world in the 1930s, it wasn't until the 1970s that Neel began to gain mainstream visibility when her colorful life story, ebullient personality, and passion about showing her work began to attract the media's attention. By this point she was in her seventies, and her grandmotherly but ribald persona and outlandish portraits had become the subject of frequent feature stories in mainstream newspapers and magazines including Newsweek and People. Her irreverent sense of humor even helped land her two guest appearances on the Johnny Carson Show