Alex Katz

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Recent Landscapes by Eight Americans, September 1964 - May 1966

Salt Lake City, Utah Museum of Fine Arts; San Diego, The Art Gallery; St. Paul, Minnesota Museum of Art; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Alex Katz, January 1971 - December 1971, no. 11, p. 64, illustrated in black and white

Long Island City, The Institute for Contemporary Art/P.S.1 Museum, Alex Katz Under the Stars: American Landscapes 1951–1995, April - June 1998

While best known for his large-scale portraiture, Alex Katz has been prolific in his landscape works throughout his practice, marking some of the most important turning points in his oeuvre. Unlike his contemporaries experimenting with abstract expressionism, Katz was fascinated with the technical side of his painting and drawing practices. While attending the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, Katz developed a passion for the light and scenery of the area as he was encouraged to compose landscape works en-plein-air. The darker, imposing light of the East Coast continues to inspire Katz to the present-day, analyzing the way in which the light can drastically alter one’s perspective of the same scene.

After the artist met his wife, Ada, he reached a turning point in his practice as he began to paint portraits of his wife and other friends within his social scene. Admiring the scale of the works of the abstract expressionists as well as the visually polished graphics of the pop artists, Katz created large-scale figurative paintings, utilizing a unique wet-on-wet painterly style. By layering color fields before they dry, the artist finishes his compositions in one sitting, creating paintings that have a noticeably vibrant appearance. While Katz is known for these grand portraits, his practice has always included landscape works ranging from those depicting coastal Maine to urban New York City skylines.

The present work, East Madison #3 (1960), combines many of the most recognizable features of Alex Katz’s artistic practice. The center of the composition is reflective of his work with landscapes. He paints a characteristically serene scene that captures the light of a certain point in the day, while the trompe d’oeil that encircles the composition is unique. The atypical pink coloring surrounding the imagery distorts the viewer’s perspective, making it seem as if one is looking through a telescope, like a glimpse into a different life. These singular color planes can be seen in both the abstract expressionists and the pop artists; the present work provides a greater understanding into how Alex Katz was influenced by these groups.