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Alex Katz

American

b. 1927

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  1. Washington by Alex Katz, Image 2.

    Alex Katz

    Washington, 1975

    Lithograph on paper

    20 x 40 in

Alex Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Cooper Union in 1949 and continued his art studies at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine, where he was encouraged for the first time to paint from life rather than drawings. "I painted outdoors directly from landscape. It was a terrific kick." Working from life became crucial to his method. "I realized that if I was painting what was around me, I wouldn't be painting other people's pictures." An exhibition introduced him to the work of Matisse, who left a lasting impression. "Part of it had to do with the technique. There was no effort. I said, That's the way I want a painting to be." Inspired by the French artist's example he started to make collages in 1956. Four years later he stopped because the works seemed too nostalgic, he said, and he wanted to paint the present tense. By 1960 he was constructing freestanding cut-out works. He painted large canvases inspired by film and advertising, often with huge, cropped faces. Lithography and printmaking occupied a growing degree of his time. He worked on portraits with plain undetailed backgrounds. For a year he painted windows. The art critic Éric de Chassy argues that his framing "suggests certain cinema shots traditionally associated with establishing actors or providing emblematic plot samples." The detached flatness of his effects gave him something in common with Pop Art, but his concentration on the human body was unusual at a time of minimalism and abstraction. Public taste caught up with his cool figures during the 1980s. In the late years of that decade he painted a series of landscapes at his second home in Maine. The Colby College Museum of Art in that state has dedicated an entire wing to his art. Katz has been the subject of numerous one-man shows and retrospectives.

Deanne Sole, UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum, 2013

(Image Credit: Alex Soth, New York Times)
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