Alex Katz

Born in Brooklyn New York, in 1927, Alex Katz is a famous figurative painter, sculptor and printmaker who studied at the The Cooper Union School of Art New York in 1946-49 and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture Maine where he learned to paint directly from life in the plein air tradition developed by the French Impressionists. The son of Russian Immigrants, Katz grew up in St Albans, Queens.
Though known in small circles for many years, Katz only received wider acclaim when he turned 80. Katz is known for his bold large scale colourful graphic simplified portraits of family and friends, especially his wife Ada. Later, he painted the American landscape and at times employed the technique of collage in his work. Subjects that also feature in his work are still-life subjects, pets and flowers.
When he was starting out in the Fifties, the New York art scene was dominated by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Alongside these giants of abstract expressionism Katz says he felt “totally isolated”. But what he learnt from their work was a way of painting “directly from my subconscious, quicker than I could think”.(source: The Art of Alex Katz, Martin Grayford, The Telegraph, 10 May, 2010).

Katz paints everyday; 'I work seven days a week. I need a large space to work – at least 35ft wide. In the winter I work in a space that is about 50 x 45ft, with a ceiling height that accommodates a 12ft painting, which is important to me'.
(source: http://www.phaidon.com.au/agenda/art/articles/2010/april/24/alex-katz-on-his-works-worries-and-wife/)

Alex Katz's work has been the subject of nearly 200 solo exhibitions internationally since 1954. His works are well represented in over 100 public collections worldwide, including The Art Institute of Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Alex Katz lives and works in New York and is represented by the Pace Gallery, New York.

http://www.alexkatz.com/

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