Alex Katz: Seeing, Drawing, Making

Featuring a selection of 80 figurative works and landscapes in a wide range of materials and media including pencil, ink, oil stick and charcoal, drawings, prints and paintings, Alex Katz: Seeing, Drawing, Making demonstrates how the artist explores and elaborates the same image through diverse media. The volume reveals how Katz's repetitive method of working results in the distillation of form for which he is famous. Whether portraying a dancer at full stride or a secluded landscape seen at sunset, Katz's iconic stylization is the result of careful preparation, beginning with intuitive sketches, continuing with pencil drawings and large-format charcoal cartoons and concluding with completed canvases. A series of works from the mid-1980s entitled Last Look, after choreographer Paul Taylor's eponymous piece, evidences Katz's nuanced approach to human form and gesture. This volume offers a fascinating glimpse into the hard work that goes into making a Katz painting look effortless.