Katz's Maine

Luna Park, 1973


Homage to Monet, 2009
Althought he's primarily known for his large scale portraiture, artist Alex Katz's landscapes always blow me away. After summering in Maine for the past fifty years, Katz's billboard-sized images of lakes never rang more true to me than seeing them at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. I couldn't help but juxtapose James' photographs of Maine with Katz's paintings. By capturing the light and color of dusk, Katz was able to convey the essence of the landscape, not unlike the impressionists who often painted the same image at different times of the day. Katz references Monet in particular, by combining his appropriation of the Waterlillies series with the Maine landscape Katz so clearly loves. Like Monet, these more recent works walk the line between abstract and figurative, using the landscape as a springboard for exploring color and shape.

Alex Katz: Southampton

The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton is having an Alex Katz show that is definitely worth seeing. The show takes viewers through the artist's creative process-- from loose sketch to finished drawing, to lithograph, to large scale canvas. Interestingly enough, some of the sketches are more appealing than the billboard-sized paintings. The immediacy of brush stroke and color gives them a looseness that is often missing from the larger works. A perfect example is Katz's large scale picnic table. The oil studies are juicy and vibrant, whereas the large scale image is almost too perfect and flat. The one image which blew me away, an homage to Monet's Water Lilies, was both large in scale and loose in style and showed masterful complexity in line, color, and content. The shortcoming of the show? That I couldn't get a postcard nor a book to take home as a souvenir.

Alex Katz: Fifteen Minutes

I've been following Alex Katz's career ever since the 80's, gravitating to his large scale, graphic portraiture. It's the kind of work people enjoy living with. It's for that reason, I often think of Katz's paintings more often in the homes of personal collections than in museums, kind of like having a billboard in your loft. This coming Friday, Katz's new exhibition Fifteen Minutes at PaceWildenstein Gallery in Chelsea opens, featuring some of his lesser-known, large scale twilight landscapes: silhouetted trees along the lakes of Maine, Soho buildings at sunset, which have appeared and reappeared throughout his career either paintings or lithographs. These images catch those last 15 minutes of shimmering light, and if the role of art is meant to raise awareness of the world around us, I can't think of a better tribute to Earth Day than to look at such a perfect moment captured. The show runs until June 11th, coinciding with several exhibitions of Katz's work throughout Europe. Save yourself the flight and head into the city, and let me know what you think.