Michael Shane Neal

Place: Nashville

Born: 1968

Biography:

Michael Shane Neal is an American portrait artist born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1968. He currently serves as the chairman of the Portrait Society of America. Neal has completed over 500 commissioned portraits, including official portraits for the United States Capitol of U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg, former Majority Leader and U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, 10th Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. In 2020, Neal's painting of Congressman John Lewis was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery as a part of their permanent exhibit entitled 'The Struggle for Justice.' Neal's commissions also include former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham for the Department of Energy and U.S. Senator Arlen Specter for Yale Law School. Neal is a protégé of the nation's leading portrait artist Everett Raymond Kinstler and has exhibited alongside Kinstler in a 2003 show entitled 'Realism Now: Mentors and Protégées' at America's oldest gallery, The Vose Galleries, in Boston, Massachusetts.