Alice Neel is a key representative of American realism. She worked mainly in portraiture. “The Great Society” is one of the few examples in her oeuvre of an anonymous and multi-figured painting. Neel depicts a group of elderly, disillusioned figures over a cup of coffee in Stanley’s Cafeteria, a low-cost café on Broadway, not far from Neel’s home on the Upper West Side. Commenting on American society, the title refers to the 60s U.S. government reform program fighting poverty. The private scene in a public space shows a state of desolation forming in society that no political reform efforts can affect. “The Great Society” is an extraordinary painting in which Neel visualizes her subjective view of a certain socio-political Zeitgeist.