American painter
and graphic artist, best known for his unique
REALIST style.
Trained at the Cooper Union School of Art in New
York, and then at the Skowhegan School of Painting
and Sculpture in Maine from 1949-50. In 1972 he
was awarded the Guggenheim Grant in Painting.
Alex Katz is one of the most important American
artists to have emerged since 1950. Throughout
his career, which now spans more than thirty years,
Katz has produced a remarkable and impressive
body of work that constitutes a unique aspect
of modern realism.
In the words of Richard Marshall, Associate Curator
of Exhibitions of the Whitney Museum of American
Art: "Portraits have been the mainstay of
Katz's paintings since the late 1950's - especially
of his wife, Ada, son, Vincent, and a circle of
friends composed of artists, poets, critics and
dancers. Katz's portraits form a new and distinctive
type of realism in American art which combines
aspects of both abstraction and representation.
His work is characterized by flatly painted, dramatically
cropped, oversize heads that recall movies, advertising
and billboards. Katz's concern is not with an
emotional narrative, but with the style of portraiture
- with giving the traditional genre to posed portraits
an expansive, contemporary look."
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