Born in Brooklyn in 1927 and trained at The Cooper Union, Alex Katz underwent a formative shift at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1949, where he moved from painting from drawings to painting from life. This transition to plein air painting provided the foundation for a career defined by a unique brand of realism. By the late 1950s, Katz began developing his signature style: large-scale portraits set against monochrome backgrounds. These works, often featuring his wife and muse, Ada, anticipated the Pop Art movement and separated him from the gestural Abstract Expressionists of the New York School.
During the 1960s, Katz expanded his practice into "cutouts"—freestanding portraits painted on wood or shaped aluminum—and began producing massive canvases influenced by the dramatic cropping of cinema and billboard advertising. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, his subject matter grew to include complex group portraits of his social circle of poets and artists, as well as high-fashion models. In the 1990s, he shifted his focus toward "environmental" landscapes, creating "allover" canvases that sought to envelop the viewer in nature and light.
In the 21st century, Katz has continued to innovate, employing digital tools like the iPhone to compose his maquettes and experimenting with extreme close-ups of flowers and faces. His prolific output has been the subject of over 250 solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Bilbao, and the Tate. With works held in over 100 public collections—including MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—and a dedicated wing at the Colby College Museum of Art, Katz remains a preeminent figure in contemporary art, recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Guggenheim Fellowship.