Alex Katz

Laura 5

Katz‘ portrait of Laura Halzack - prima ballerina of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York City - captivates with its breathtaking elegance as well as its interplay of color, surface, and form. Unusual for Katz is the deliberate reduction to black and white tones, as in photography. This means of expression, together with the intense gaze of the dancer in focus gives the work an extraordinary aura and very lively presence. The image produces a moment of suspense, detached from the flow of movement yet filled with introspection. The dancer stands out amongst her surroundings and catches the viewer’s eye, while the dark background becomes the abstract sounding board for the portrait. The refined facial features, the proud posture, the dancer's distant gaze appear simultaneously iconic and human, reminiscent of a classic cinematic close-up.

- Stephan Reisner

About the Artist
Alex Katz (American, b.1927) is renowned for his figurative paintings, which examine the nature of representing the three-dimensional world on canvas in simplified portraits and landscapes. Katz was born in Brooklyn; he attended the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, and then studied art at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, ME. Amidst the height of Abstract Expressionism in the United States, Katz painted representational works, but in the 1950s, his quick, expressive brushstrokes represented the influence of artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning on his work. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, his adherence to simplified forms and to careful studies of light, flatness, and color are particularly evident in his work. His allegiance to figuration and his embrace of the two-dimensional surface prefigured these features in Pop Art in the 1960s.

Katz also worked with collage, printmaking, and set design, increasingly concentrating on these media and developing freestanding sculptural collages through the 1970s. He later painted large-scale landscapes, developing “environments” in his works intended to envelop and immerse the viewer, and continues working with natural themes in his works today. Katz has held solo exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, at the Jewish Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in Spain, among other venues, and has received several honors for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He currently lives and works in New York and Maine.

Alex Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. After earning a degree at the Cooper Union School of Art, he went on to advanced studies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In addition to prominent exhibitions across the USA and Europe, his work has earned him numerous awards and accolades, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a St. Gaudens Medal in Art, a Cooper Union Professional Achievement Citation, and a Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin.

Katz is represented in over 100 public collections worldwide, including: Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Brooklyn Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville; Des Moines Art Center; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Milwaukee Art Museum; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

2022	Alex Katz Retrospective, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA        Alex Katz: Dance and Theatre Collaborations, Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, USA Alex Katz, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain Alex Katz Flowers, Thaddaeus Ropac Seoul, South Korea
2021	Alex Katz New Paintings, Gladstone Gallery, New York, USA; Beijing, China Alex Katz - Floating Worlds curated by Eric de Chassey, Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin, Paris, France Alex Katz, Tramps, New York, USA
2020	Alex Katz, Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, China Alex Katz, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, UK Alex Katz Trees, Sant'Andrea de Scaphis, Rome, Italy
2019	Bigger is Better, Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany Monica De Cardenas, Zuoz, Switzerland Alex Katz: Flowers, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA Alex Katz / Moby Dick, Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, USA Focus on: Alex Katz, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, USA Alex Katz, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, South Korea Red Dancers, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
2018	Dancers and Models, Lotte Museum of Art, Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea Alex Katz, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany Small Paintings, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, USA Three Paintings, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, USA A Life in Print, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue , USA Cut outs, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, USA
2017	Alex Katz: Black and White, Tampa Museum of art, Tampa, USA Brand- New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; Neuberger Museum of Art, New York, USA Cartoons, Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid, Spain Subway Drawings, Timoty Taylor, New York, USA Cartoons, Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid, Spain Dancers, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria
2016	Alex Katz: small paintings and drawings, Monica de Cardenas, Milano, Italy New Landscapes, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Paris, France Alex Katz: Small paintings, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Maine, USA Brand New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, USA Present Tense: Sixty Years of Master Drawings, Richard Gray Gallery, New York, USA
2015	This is Now, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA; Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain Alex Katz at the Met, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA Black Paintings, Timothy Gallery, London, UK
2014	Alex Katz: 45 Years of Portraits, 1969–2014, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France ARTIST ROOMS Alex Katz, Tate Modern, London, UK Drawings, cartoons, paintings, Albertina, Wien, Austria Alex Katz: Red Hat, Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid, Spain
2013	Alex Katz New York/Maine, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria Landscapes, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich, Switzerland Alex Katz & Felix Vallotton, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland Alex Katz: Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, USA
2012	Der perfekte Augenblick, Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany Essl Museum, Wien, Austria Alex Katz Prints, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, USA
2011	Cool Prints, Jewish Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA
2010	Prints, Paintings, Cutouts, Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall, Wien, Austria Seeing, Drawing, Making, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York, USA National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2009	An American Way of Seeing, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Kleve, Germany Museo delle Arti di Catanzaro (MARCA), Catanzaro, Italy
2007	Alex Katz in European Collections, The Langen Foundation Neuss, Germany Alex Katz: New York, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland One Flight Up, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, UK
2006	Woodcut and Linocuts, Colby College Museum of Modern Art, Waterville, USA Alex Katz Paints Ada, Jewish Museum, New York
2005	Alex Katz in Maine. Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, USA
2004	Cartoons and Paintings. Albertina Museum, Wien, Austria
2003	Cut-outs. Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Portraits. Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice, Italy
2002	In Your Face. Kunst-und Austellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington, USA Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, Germany
2000	Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, USA Regarding Alex Katz. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, USA
1999	Change of Scene. Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Brazil Contemporary Art Centre, Long Island City, New York, USA
1998	Twenty Five Years of Painting The Saatchi Collection, London, UK Under the Stars: American Landscape 1951-1995. P.S.1, USA
1996	A Drawing Retrospective, Wanderausstellung des Munson-Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, USA Institute for Contemporary Art/P.S. 1 Museum, Long Island City, USA Dawn. Peter Blum, New York, USA
1995	American Landscape. Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany
1993	Rubenstein/Diacono, New York, USA
1992	Drawings 1946-1989. Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, USA
1991	Small Paintings. Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, USA A Drawing Retrospective. Museum of Art, Munson-Williams- Proctor Institute, Utica, New York Traveled to Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, March; The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, USA
1990	Paintings, Drawings and Cutouts. Orlando Museum of Art, Florida, USA Making Faces: Self-Portraits by Alex Katz. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. Traveled to The Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey, J.B. Speed Art Museum of Art, New Jersey, J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, USA
1989	Recent Paintings.Institute of Contemporary arts, London, UK
1988	A Print Retrospective. The Brooklyn Museum, New York The Seibu Museum of Art, The Seed Hall, Tokyo, Traveled to Nocturnal Paintings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, USA
1985	William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, USA Paintings by Alex Katz. Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, USA Twelve Hours. Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, USA Schupf. Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine and Bowdoin. USA
1981	Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, USA Paintings and Drawings 1959-79. Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, USA
1980	Salinas, California. Traveled to University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
1978	Alex Katz in the Seventies. Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
1977	Recent Paintings. Fresno Arts Center and Museum, California, USA Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada Galerie Roger d'Amécourt, Paris, France
1975	Marlborough Fine Art, London, UK
1974	Recent Works from the Collection of Paul J. Schupf. The Picker Art Gallery, Charles A. Dana Creative Arts Center, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, USA     Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, USA Prints. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Traveled to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, University Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, USA
1973	Marlborough Gallery, New York, USA
1972	Reed College Art Gallery, Portland, USA
1971	Galerie Brusberg, Hannover, Deutschland Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Traveled to The Art Gallery, USA Museum of Art, St. Paul; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, USA University of California, San Diego; Minnesota, USA
1969	Alex Katz at Cheat Lake. Mont Chateau Lodge, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA Presented by West Virginia University and the West Virginia Arts and Humanities Council, USA
1964	Fischbach Gallery, New York, USA
1963	Thibaut Gallery, New York, USA
1962	Flat Statues. Tanager Gallery, New York, USA The Set for 'George Washington Crossing the Delaware', USA Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, USA
1960	Stable Gallery, New York, USA
1959	Tanager Gallery, New York, USA
1958	The Sun Gallery, Provincetown, USA
1954	Paintings. Roko Gallery, New York, USA
	(Selection)