I did not know Alex Katz’s oeuvre until recently. I probably read or heard his name when I was in Maine because the Museum of Art at Colby College, which I visited with my daughter last April, has an entire wing dedicated to him. I possibly saw some of his paintings also at The Portland Museum of Art, but my imagination was inspired by other artists that day. In any case, his large-scale portraits must have made an impression on me somehow, because I started associating them with his name, for example at Sotheby’s exhibition for their Contemporary Day Auction.
Last Friday, I finally decided to learn more about this artist’s work by visiting Alex Katz: Gathering at the Guggenheim.
The museum itself was as stunning as ever, perhaps even more so due to the combination of people in the flesh and people on the canvas who animated its rotunda. Over 140 works by Katz spanning eight decades (he is 95 years old) are on display, from early observations of life and landscape in New York City and coastal Maine to the more recent immersive paintings. In between, dozens of portraits of his beloved wife Ada Del Moro (her story as interesting as his art), his son Vincent, their friends, and the community of artists, poets, and everyday people who enriched their life.
Let’s go back to one of Katz’s earlier works because it made me appreciate the path his artistic production has taken over the years.
Although silhouettes of people are recognizable in this painting, there are traces of Abstract Expressionism, which at the time was the main art movement in the United States. This style, however, did not particularly appeal to Katz, who was more interested in painting the “here and now”, whether it be a particular landscape at dawn or sunset, or people around him.
Katz soon developed his signature portraiture style. Critics have pointed to the cinematographic quality of his portraits, which resemble billboard advertising with their simple lines and vibrant colors. The people he portrayed, however, have observed how he was able to get to the essence of their identity despite that simplicity of form and focus on external appearance.
The crisp lines, rich colors, and exquisite details of the portraits are also found in Katz’s paintings of flowers.
In later years, Katz returned to landscape painting but the larger scale and increasingly abstract quality of these new works distinguish them from earlier ones.
To explain what Katz is trying to do with these paintings, I will share an anecdote from my life. Last summer, I went to see a show in the town next to where my family and I were staying in the Italian Alps. Without a car or taxis to rely on for transportation, my sister and I rented bikes to travel back and forth on the path through the pine groves that connect the two towns.
On the way back, after the last lights of the camping ground, we had to proceed for some time with my phone’s flashlight as our only guide. I looked up at the sky and was mesmerized by the expanse of bright stars that illuminated the sky, a contrast made even sharper by the pitch-black forest we were cautiously crossing.
Alex Katz would call that first optical sensation of the starry night a blast, the moment when things don’t quite focus yet. The environmental, immersive landscapes he has been painting in his late years are an attempt to reproduce that sensation of seeing, the blast that envelopes the viewer with its sublime beauty.
“I’m trying to get where the jazz musicians are,” Katz said, “the immediate present.” The immediate present, with its magic and beauty, is what Katz so brilliantly captured throughout his artistic life, on view at the Guggenheim until February 20, 2023.