Alex Katz

Collection of the Artist
PaceWildenstein, New York
Private Collection
Claude Aguttes, Neuilly-sur-Seine, December 19, 2005, lot 222
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

New York, PaceWildenstein, Alex Katz: Twelve Paintings, September - October 2004, p. 11, illustrated in color

This work is in very good condition overall. The canvas is unlined. Upon close inspection there is some fine craquelure noted near the edges and a small area of hairline craquelure near the left edge roughly 22 inches from the bottom. There is a vertical hairline linear abrasion to the pigment at the bottom left measuring roughly 6 inches located 1/2 inch from the left edge and 5 inches from the bottom edge. There are some faint accretions visible along the left turning edge. Under Ultraviolet light inspection there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

For more than half a century Alex Katz’s unique style, commitment to figurative painting and cool aesthetic have set him apart from his contemporaries. Katz began to develop his flattened and figurative painting technique during the advent of Abstract Expressionism in New York in the 1950s and for many years the artist’s oeuvre was mostly identified as a precursor to Pop Art. He became newly appreciated in the American art scene in the 1980s when artists, including David Salle and Francesco Clemente, began to use Katz’s work as a valuable model for their own figurative practice. Katz gained international recognition and critical acclaim in the second half of the '80s with his 1986 retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York and feature in the 1989 publication of the Parkett review. Scholars, such as Eric de Chassey, have credited Katz with reframing the discourse of modernism. De Chassey writes, “Katz was one of the first to show in a new way that the pictorial and the iconographic are conciliatory, as opposed to the dominant discourse of Modernism, which situates non-figuration as an historical necessity…”(Alex Katz, Vittoria Coen, and Lisa Liebman, Alex Katz, Torino, 1999, p. 212) Katz, with his self-assured use of line and color and his eye for subtle light, finds the abstract in the figurative.  By remaining steadfast to his immediately identifiable visual vocabulary, Katz has established himself as one of the most admired artists of his generation.

Katz’s portraits of individuals, which masterfully capture nuances in the sitter, are an essential part of his renowned body of work. In the present work, Cindy, Katz uses color, tone and line to create a composition where purity and serene simplicity delightfully intermingle with abstraction in the cropped profile of the famous photographer Cindy Sherman. Cindy was included in the 2004 solo exhibition Alex Katz: Twelve Paintings at PaceWildenstein in New York along with nine other one-name portraits of women. Although similar in size, format and composition to the other works in the show, Cindy stands out with its unique coloration. In Cindy, Katz uses warmer tones than in the other works and employs a peachy palette of soft yellows and pinks that create a unique harmony and balance in his portrait of Sherman. Katz depicts a stripped down version of the artist without the accoutrements of her craft. He is able to skillfully capture the distant gaze that is reminiscent of Sherman’s stare in many of her own celebrated self-portrait photographs.

At first glimpse, Cindy’s appearance seems natural, but with more careful contemplation we see her eyes sit on an unrealistic plane, slightly askew. The abstraction in her face slowly reveals itself through the skewing, the wisps of luminous yellow hair and the flat patches of light that form in amorphous shapes on her cheeks and nose. We see a new, softer and aloof side of an artist that is renowned for assuming other personas in her work. The multifaceted interplay amongst the elements of Cindy’s portrait is a quality that illuminates many of Katz’s best works. De Chassey writes, “Each of the elements seems to have been stylized independently before participating in a more complex game, in a way which gives as much importance to the movement of hair as it does to the shine of lip make-up, to the contour of a face as much to the effect of light upon it. In this way, each element becomes a messenger of the sensuality which is reinforced by the whole.”(Ibid, p. 214) In this portrayal of Cindy Sherman, in his iconic style, using flatness, light and color, Katz showcases his stunning ability to reveal the spirit of his subject in a surprising and subtle way.