Peter Blum is pleased to announce an exhibition at 20 West 57th Street of small paintings by Alex Katz dating from 1987 to the present. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, September 19th from 6-8 pm.
When one thinks of Alex Katz’s work, his large-scale stylized figurative paintings of portraits and landscapes inevitably come to mind. But as this exhibition shows, Katz has made many small paintings, which have been seen to a much lesser degree.
On display are twenty-two small paintings, not larger than 12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 41.6 cm), depicting portraits, landscapes and flower scenes. Katz has a close connection with his subjects - the portraits are of family and friends, whereas the landscapes and flower scenes are from Maine where he has spent every summer since 1954.
The small paintings are used as studies for his large-scale paintings but are recognized as paintings in their own right. From 2001-2002 there were independent museum exhibitions at the Addison Gallery of Art, Andover, MA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO. As opposed to their large-scale counterparts, the small paintings are made directly from a live model or en plein air, their brush strokes are more gestural and impulsive. We are left with an intimate experience and are presented with a new way to view his overall work.
Alex Katz was born in Queens, NY in 1927 and lives and works in New York. Katz graduated in 1949 from the Cooper Union in New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and his works can be found in over 100 public collections worldwide.