Journalist and author Phoebe Hoban will read excerpts from her forthcoming book, a biography of American painter Alice Neel at The Watermill Center on May 23. A current Watermill Scholar-in-Residence, Hoban is putting the finishing touches on her book and her discussion will shed light on the life and work of the renowned artist. Hoban’s book will be the first biography of the late Alice Neel and is scheduled for publication by St. Martin's Press in Spring, 2010.

Phoebe Hoban is a New York-based journalist who has written about culture and the arts since 1982. Her articles for publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Observer, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and ArtNews, among others, include investigative pieces on cultural controversies, profiles and criticism. Basquiat: A Quick Killing In Art, her biography of the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, published by Viking in 1998, and now a Penguin paperback, was a New York Times notable book of the year and a national bestseller.