Alex Katz

The life and work of American artist Alex Katz, emphasizing his distinctive blend of realistic representation and abstraction and his interest in portraiture

Hovering uneasily between realism and pop art, Katz's gigantic portraits strike detractors as slick and lifeless, while admirers praise their energy, style and optimism. An exhibition now at New York's Whitney Museum may help viewers decide whether Katz's swimmers, couples, partygoers and motorists are empty pop icons or, as Rosenblum puts it, "a loving, directly perceived record of the sweet facts of people and places that provide the continuities of the artist's life." This lavish exhibition catalogue smacks of promotionalism in its academic gush over Katz's work. Marshall argues that the pictures are "full of formal, social, and psychological references, both historical and current," but the brief essays do not go far beyond the usual comparisons with the large-scale works of Manet, Leger and Picasso and the stark croppings of Degas and Caillebotte. In the end, Katz may be an artist who cleverly exploits illusionistic devices of billboard ads and movie stills to fashion gargantuan portraits that make ambiguous social commentaries.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Published in conjunction with the Katz retrospective at the Whitney, this catalog presents an overview of the development of the artist's distinctive style. His portraits of relatives, friends, and acquaintances derive from a blending of 19th and 20th century masters, such as Manet, Matisse, and Picasso. To these influences was added the example of billboard art with its huge, close-up views of cropped human faces. Katz worked through series of collages and cut-out painted figures, finally emerging with his unique style of large-scale portraiture painted in broad color planes with a strong 19th-century interest in artificial and natural light. The essays are well written and the reproductions are excellent. Recommended for all art collections. Lynell A. Morr, Ringling Museum of Art Lib., Sarasota, Fla.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.