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Alex Katz

"I prefer superficiality … to the serious avant-garde."

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Notes of biography

Alex Katz was born in New York in 1927. He studied art at Cooper Union of New York from 1946 – 1949, then at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. His first exhibition was organized in 1954. He is considered as one of the precursors of Pop Art. From this time, Alex Katz is distinguished from the abstract expressionists by painting large scale figurative paintings. He approaches painting like Rauschenberg or Warhol, with the fragmentation and repetition of motifs.
The artist paints essentially portraits of models. He first makes a draft of the picture, then reworking it before enlarging it on the canvas. He makes portraits of New York intelligentsia or put himself in self portraits. He paints, without a break, the charm his subjects, their worries, their mysterious looks. His personage are often detached from their backgrounds which are at times abstract and very colorful. Alex Katz is attune with fashion, and details of fashion (hairstyles, clothing, motifs, etc.) as are the symbols of his era. The artist also paints landscapes, flowers and seascapes. He will collaborate with different shows of the choreograph Paul Taylor.
At the beginning of the 70’s, his art will be co-opted at the same time by the public and the critics who admire his clean, articulated compositons of brillant color of flat tint on polished surfaces as one is left to be seduced by the numerous possilbe significations hidden in these images. In the 80’s, Katz synthesizes, with irony, the joy of living a decade marked by the pleasure and by insouciance.
Alex Katz lives and works in New York.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Alex Katz », Ann Beattie, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1987
  • « Alex Katz », I. Sandler, Abrams, New York, 1991
  • « Alex Katz, 25 years of painting », Cornerhouse, London, 1998
  • « Alex Katz », cat. d’expo., S. Alpers, Pace Wildenstein, New York, 2001
  • « Alex Katz : Cutouts », Carter Ratcliff, Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2003
  • « Alex Katz : Faces and Names », L. Cerizza, coll.Monographies, Ed. JRP, 2008
  • « Alex Katz  - Reflections », A. Fiz, cat. d'expo., Electa Ed., 2009
  • « Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton », B. Fibicher, 5 Continents Ed., Milan, 2013
  • « Alex Katz », C. Ratcliff, I. Blazwick, Phaidon Press Publisher, 2014
  • « Katz », E. Cucchi et Vincent Katz, Ed. Nero, 2017
To read from the artist :
  • « Selfportraits of Alex Katz », J.W. Coffey, Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1990
  • « A. Katz Interviews », S. Zaech, coll. ShushLarry, Ed. Art&fiction, Lausanne, 2017
Website :
www.alexkatz.com

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Art movements

+ POP'ART / 1955-1970 / Pauline Boty, Sigmar Polke, Romero Britto, Tom Wesselmann, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover