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Monday
Jan202020

Alex Katz: Crisp And Monumental

DateMonday, January 20, 2020 at 9:00AM

Alex Katz - Red Coat - 1982 - Oil on canvas - 96 × 48 in. (243.8 × 121.9 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)“Alex Katz, the 92-year-old artist known for a distinctive style of stark figurative painting and stylized landscapes he has refined since early studies dating back to the 1940s, will be the subject of a career retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 2022.” (ARTnews)

During his long career, American artist Alex Katz (born 1927) has been associated with (and influenced by) a number of movements (such as Pop Art and Super-Relism [also known as Photo-Realism]), but he has made it a point to avoid any direct association with any of them. 

Katz has said, "I can't think of anything more exciting than the surface of things. Just appearance.” His work clearly attests to this notion, and embodies the clean lines of commercial art, as well as illustration and photography. That many of his works are monumental in scale underscores his affection for the basic elements of art.

The work featured here is a portrait of the artist’s wife, Ada, who has been a favorite subject of the artist throughout his life. “The best of Katz’s portraits create a palpable tension between specific and abstract, intimate and remote, near and far.” (Met Museum). Even in works as close-up as this one, the psychology of the sitter remains and enigma.

In addition to his portraits, Katz is also well-known for his monumental landscapes, largely based on sites in Maine.

AuthorJill | CommentPost a Comment | Reference1 Reference |

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