Alex Katz
Author(s): Alex Katz
Alex Katz is a towering figure in contemporary painting, a key New York-based artist since the early 1960s. Katz was an independent figure during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and Pop when he first emerged -- and remains a unique, though highly influential figure to this day. Alex Katz is best known for his distinct portraits of sophisticated, irresistible women, masterfully painted using precise, broad areas of colour. Alongside these unmistakably 'Katzian' female portraits are portraits of men, group portraits, landscapes and interiors rendered in painting, drawing, collage and metal cut-outs. All attest to the artist's attention to detail, economy of means and consummate technique. Bigger-than-life paintings such as The Black Dress (1960), Blue Umbrella (1972), Red Coat (1982) and White Visor (2003) have entered the collective conscience as the epitome of a particular, late 20th century feminine ideal: icons of fashion, yet miraculously resilient to the prevailing fashions of contemporary art. Katz has exhibited widely all over the world; a major, touring retrospective originating at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art was held in 1986. Alex Katz's work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., The Tate Gallery, London, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, among many others.
General Information
- :
- : Phaidon Press Ltd
- : Phaidon Press Ltd
- : 1.574
- : 01 December 2005
- : United Kingdom
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Alex Katz
- : Paperback
- : 759.13
- : 256
- : 250 illustrations, (220 colour )
More About The Product
'Katz's art combines the eye-jarring quality of Matisse with a distinctively American cool.' The Independent, 7 July 2006 'a great way of gaining insight into both [Katz's] influences and the context into which his work has come about.' Contemporary, August 2006
Carter Ratcliff (Survey) is a Visiting Professor in the MFA programme of the New York Studio School and the graduate Art History departments of Hunter College, New York and New York University. His books include Sargent (1983), The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art (1998) and Out of the Box: The Reinvention of Art 1965-1975 (2000) He was awarded the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism, College Art Association, 1987, and is a leading world expert on Alex Katz. Author's Residence: Highland, New York Robert Storr (Interview) is Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Formerly Senior Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2004 he curated the 5th Site Sante Fe Biennial in New Mexico. He was a contributing author to Phaidon's Louise Bourgeois (1995/2003), Robert Mangold (2000) and Raymond Pettibon (2001) and has written in such magazines as Artforum, Village Voice, Art in America and Parkett. Author's Residence: New York Iwona Blazwick (Focus) is Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. As Head of Exhibitions and Display at Tate Modern, London (1997-2001), Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1986-92), and is noted independent curator as well, included for example in NowHere (Louisiana Museum, Denmark, 1997). From 1993-97 she was Commissioning Editor for Contemporary Art at Phaidon Press. Author's Residence: London For his Artist's Choice Katz has selected nine notable New York poets: Ted Berrigan, Edwin Denby, Vincent Katz, Frank O'Hara, Ron Padgett, James Schuyler and Anne Waldman, all of whom Alex Katz knew or knows personally and with whom he has collaborated or portrayed in artworks. Alex Katz's Artist's Writings range from his 1961 text Brand New & Terrific, on newness in painting, to extracts from his 1997 memoirs, Invented Symbols. Also included are interviews with artist colleagues Richard Prince and Francesco Clemente. Artist's Residence: New York
