Alex Katz American, b. 1927
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Alex Katz is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker. Born in Brooklyn, New York on July 24, 1927, he studied in New York and in Skowhegan, Maine between 1946 and 1950. In the early 1950s he was influenced by the work of Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, and he produced swiftly executed pictures of trees and various works based on photographs. In the mid 1950s, working from life, Katz painted spare, brightly coloured landscapes, interiors, and figures. Soon afterward he also produced simplified images in collage. These early works emphasized the flatness of the picture plane while remaining representational, and this insistence on figuration placed him outside the contemporary avant-garde mainstream, in which abstraction and chance were key qualities. Katz developed his style in the portrait works of ordinary people from the late 1950s, such as Ada with White Dress (1958). This resolution of the demands of formalism and representation looked forward to the Pop Art of the following decade.
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"[Katz] has always had his own direction, which has not been the direction of mainstream art in any of the last seven decades. In a Katz painting, style-the way it's painted-is the primary element. His confident, crisply articulated technique makes us see the world the way he sees it, clear and up close, with all but the most essential details pared away." - Calvin Tomkins
Katz's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Detroit Institute of Art, The Tate Gallery, The Brooklyn Museum, Museo Rufino Tamayo, The Guggenheim Bilbao, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum, The National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian Institute, among others. -
Works
Alex Katz American, b. 1927
Red Tree, 2024Archival pigment ink on Innova Etching Cotton Rag 315 gsm fine art paper82.5 x 42 in.
209.5 x 107 cm
Edition of 25Series: Red TreeSigned & numbered rectoFurther images
'I had this idea that I wanted to paint an afterimage; it started with Matisse's Red Studio (1911), which is an afterimage. Supposedly, that is why Matisse painted the studio..."I had this idea that I wanted to paint an afterimage; it started with Matisse's Red Studio (1911), which is an afterimage. Supposedly, that is why Matisse painted the studio red, because he had been out in the garden on a bright day-outdoors in the green-and he walked in the door and got a flash of red. In my mind, I can see that red room, and that's where I am.
It's a visual phenomenon that is not often repeated, but most people should have had it once in their life. I had the idea that I wanted to paint it more concrete than Matisse, so I did a big painting and it was a success. It looks like a 1914 semi-abstract thing. American-a little stiff-but the effect was successful. One brush, one color. Like thin ice."
Alex Katz, 2024Publications
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