ALEX KATZ

Alex Katz

Edwin

1961-62

Oil on masonite

23-1/4” x 27-11/16” (59 x 70.3 cm)

Framed: 31-5/8” x 36” (80.3 x 91.4 cm)

Alex Katz (born 1927) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. Katz was one of the earliest artists in the New York School to react against the hegemony of Abstract Expressionism through an insistence on figurative representation. Although this has frequently placed Katz’s style in anticipation of Pop Art, his careful composition and emphasis on surface are closely related to the formal concerns of Color Field Painting. Katz’s images masterfully combine the objective nature of geometric abstraction with subjective portraiture. These intimate portraits—whether paintings, sculptures, or prints—represent the essential visual elements of their subjects in vibrant color.

Alex Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. He first studied at the Cooper Union Art School in New York and then, from 1949–50, at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Katz’s first solo exhibition was held in 1954 at Roko Gallery in New York. During his twenties, Katz befriended other influential New York artists including Larry Rivers and Fairfield Porter. In the early 1960s, Katz began painting on a larger scale, often focusing on closely cropped faces drawn from his social milieu of creative figures: artists, poets, and personal acquaintances.

By the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s, Katz turned his attention to landscapes, drawing inspiration from the effects of light in an array of contexts, from the organized, artificial light of an urban environment to the filtered sunlight of nature. At the turn of the twenty first century, Katz began incorporating the color relationships and formal qualities of flowers into his work.

For over 60 years, Katz has created complex and challenging work, which has been exhibited internationally and featured in multiple retrospectives. His works are part of major collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Smithsonian Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg. In addition to international acclaim, Katz has received many honors including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy Museum in New York and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Colgate University in New York.

Katz lives and works in New York City.

2018 – “Brand New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s,” Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York

2018 – “Alex Katz: Models and Dancers,” Lotte Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea

2018 – “Alex Katz: Grass and Trees,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

2017 – “Alex Katz: Dancers and Models,” Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria

2017 – “Alex Katz: Small Paintings,” Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida

2017 – “Brand New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s,” The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

2017 – “Alex Katz: Cartoons,” Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid, Spain

2016 – “Alex Katz: Black and White,” American University Museum, Washington, D.C.

2016 – “Alex Katz: Small Paintings,” Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, Maine

2016 – “Alex Katz: Quick Light,” Serpentine Gallery, London, England

2016 – “Present Tense: Sixty Years of Master Drawings,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

2015 – “Alex Katz: This is Now,” Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain

2015 – “Alex Katz at the Met,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

2015 – “Alex Katz: This is Now,” High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

2015 – “Alex Katz: Black Paintings,” Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, England

2014 – “Alex Katz: Drawings, Cartoons, Paintings,” Albertina, Vienna, Austria

2014 – “Alex Katz,” Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil

2014 – “25 Years of Portraits: 1969-2014,” Galeria Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France

2013 – “Alex Katz: Virtual Reality,” Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago

2013 – “Alex Katz: Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art,” Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York

2013 – “Alex Katz: Summer in Maine,” Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid

2013 – “Katz x Katz,” Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut

2012 – “Alex Katz: Maine/New York,” Colby College Museum of Art, Maine

2012 – “Alex Katz,” Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany

2011 – “Alex Katz,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

2010 – “Alex Katz: New York,” Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine

2010 – “Alex Katz Prints,” Albertina, Vienna, Austria

2009 – “Alex Katz: Fifteen Minutes,” PaceWildenstein, New York, New York

2009 – “Alex Katz: Reflections,” Museo delle Arti di Catanzaro (MARCA), Calabria, Italy

2008 – “Alex Katz,” Galleria Monica de Cardenas, Milan, Italy

2007 – “Alex Katz Paints Ada, 1957-2005,” The Jewish Museum , New York, New York

2007 – “Alex Katz,” Irish Museum of Modern Art,  Dublin, Ireland

2006 – “Alex Katz,” Texas Gallery, Houston, Texas

2006 – “Alex Katz: The Sixties,” PaceWildenstein Gallery, New York, New York

2005 – “Alex Katz,” The University of South of Florida at Tampa,  Tampa, Florida

2005 – “Neue Editionen,” Sabine Maximilian Verlag , Munich, Germany

2004 – “Alex Katz,” Stella Gallery,  Moscow, Russia

2003 – “Alex Katz: Portraits,” Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa,  Venice, Italy

2003 – “Alex Katz,” Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac,  Paris, France

2002 – “Alex Katz: Small Paintings,” Addison Gallery of American Art,  Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts; Traveled to: Whitney Museum of American Art , New York, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York, New York; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Oklahoma City Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; The Austin Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

2001 – “Alex Katz: The Complete Woodcuts,” Peter Blum Gallery, New York, New York

2000 – “Regarding Alex Katz,” Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2000 – “Paintings of the 60’s,” Jablonka Galerie, Cologne, Germany

2000 – “Change of Scene,” Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

1999 – “Alex Katz,” Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

1998 – “Alex Katz: 25 Years of Painting,” The Saatchi Collection, London, United Kingdom

1998 – “Alex Katz,” Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1997 – “Alex Katz,” I.V.A.M. Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain

1996 – “Alex Katz Under the Stars: Landscapes 1951-1995,” Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; Traveled to: Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; Portland Musuem of Art, Portland, Maine; Institute for Contemporary Art/P.S. 1 Museum, Long Island City, New York

1996 – “Alex Katz: Recent Paintings,” Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

1995 – “Alex Katz: American Landscape,” Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany

1994 – “Alex Katz,” Suzanne Hillberry Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan

1994 – “Alex Katz,” Galería Marlborough, Madrid, Spain

1993 – “Alex Katz,” Allene Lapides Gallery, Sante Fe, New Mexico

1992 – “Alex Katz at Colby College,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine

1992 – “Alex Katz: A Drawing Retrospective,” Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas

1991 – “Alex Katz,” Marlborough Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan

1991 – “Alex Katz: Small Paintings,” Michael Kohn Gallery, Santa Monica, California

1990 – “Making Faces: Self-Portraits by Alex Katz,” North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina; Traveled to: The Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

1990 – “Alex Katz: Recent Paintings,” Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom

1990 – “Alex Katz: Paintings, Drawings and Cutouts,” Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, Florida

1989 – “Alex Katz: Print Retrospective 1951 – 1988,” Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan

1988 – “Alex Katz,” The Seibu Museum of Art, The Seed Hall, Tokyo, Japan; Traveled to: Parco Studio, Osaka, Japan

1988 – “Alex Katz: A Print Retrospective,” The Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York

1988 – “Alex Katz,” Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France

1987 – “Alex Katz,” Galerie Inge Baecker, Cologne, Germany

1986 – “Retrospective Exhibition,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Traveled to: Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, Florida

1985 – “Alex Katz: An Exhibition Featuring Works from the Collection of Paul J. Schupf,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine and Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine

1985 – “Alex Katz Paints a Picture,” Houghton Gallery, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, New York

1984 – “Alex Katz: Process and Development: Small Paintings from the Collection of Paul J. Schupf ’58,” The Picker Art Gallery, Charles A. Dana Creative Arts Center, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, New York

1984 – “Alex Katz: Small Paintings from the 1950’s to the Present,” Robert Miller Gallery, New York, New York; Michael H. Lord Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

1982 – “Alex Katz: Recent Paintings,” Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom

1982 – “Alex Katz: Drawings,” Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada

1981 – “Alex Katz,” Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

1980 – “Alex Katz: Scale and Gesture,” The Queens Museum, Flushing, New York, New York

1980 – “Alex Katz: Prints,” Centro Colombo-Americano, Bogota, Colombia

1979 – “Alex Katz: Cutouts and Drawings,” Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan

1979 – “Alex Katz: Prints,” Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina

1978 – “Alex Katz in the Seventies,” Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

1978 – “Alex Katz and His Beautiful People,” Benjamin Mangel Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1978 – “Alex Katz,” Marlborough Galerie AG, Zurich, Switzerland

1977 – “Alex Katz: Recent Paintings,” Fresno Arts Center and Museum, California; Traveled to: Art Galleries, California State University, Long Beach; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada

1976 – “Alex Katz: Exhibition of Graphics 1972-75,” Benjamin Mangel Gallery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania

1976 – “Alex Katz: Recent Works,” Marlborough Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada

1975 – “Alex Katz,” Galerie Marguérite Lamy, Paris, France

1974 – “Alex Katz Prints,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Traveled to: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; University Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Minnesota

1973 – “The American Neo-Realist: Alex Katz,” Assa Galleria, Helsinki, Finland

1972 – “Alex Katz,” Reed College Art Gallery, Portland, Oregon

1971 – “Alex Katz,” Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Traveled to: The Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, California; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, Minnesota; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

1970 – “Alex Katz: New Paintings,” Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York

1969 – “Alex Katz at Cheat Lake,” Mont Chateau Lodge, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia

1968 – “Alex Katz,” Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York

1967 – “Alex Katz: Cut-Outs,” Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York

1966 – “Alex Katz,” David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1965 – “Alex Katz: Cut-Outs,” Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York

1964 – “Alex Katz,” Fischbach Gallery, New York, New York

1963 – “Alex Katz,” Thibaut Gallery, New York, New York

1962 – “Alex Katz: Flat Statues,” Tanager Gallery, New York, New York

1961 – “Alex Katz,” Stable Gallery, New York, New York

1960 – “Alex Katz,” Stable Gallery, New York, New York

1959 – “Alex Katz,” Tanager Gallery, New York, New York