Gallery Hopping on Thursdays: September 19, 2013
​September 18, 2013
Within the immense spectrum of art tendencies and philosophies, few artists are true pioneers of any given style or movement. One significant identifying marker of an artistic pioneer is the level of influence they have on subsequent generations. This week, we are headed to the metropolitan meccas of New York City and Los Angeles to look at the work of two seminal figures of Contemporary Art, Alex Katz and Francois Morelett, both of whom have been artistic innovators in their own right.
Alex Katz: Small Paintings 1987-2013 will be on view September 19–November 2, 2013 at Peter Blum, 20 W 57th Street, New York, NY 10019.
After a short summer hiatus, Peter Blum will be re-opening its doors with an exhibition of small paintings by Figurative artist, Alex Katz (American, b.1927). The exhibition brings together 25 works completed between 1987 and the present, all of which served as en plein air studies for a number of compositions that were later rendered in large-scale format. Small Paintings 1987-2013 offers viewers a glimpse into Katz’s aesthetic processes with an assortment of gestural portraits and free-hand studies of nature from the artist’s summer excursions in Maine. Katz’s iconic, stylized faces and florals are absent here; instead of immaculate contour, the viewer is presented with spontaneous brushstrokes and undulating lines, and as a result, the studies shed light on the artist’s collective oeuvre.