At first glance, Alex Katz’s paintings seem dead simple. The renowned New York artist tackles classic themes: portraits, landscapes and flowers. He often depicts beautiful, glamorous women, such as his own wife Ada, his muse. But what looks good does not necessarily have to be easy or superficial, as is proven by his great solo in Museum Voorlinden with which he wins over friend and foe.
Charming, well-considered and bursting with confidence. That’s what this American is all about. And the same goes for his painting, which is equally captivating and convincing. Don’t get sand in your eyes, though. What looks simple is usually devilishly hard work. And so is Katz, who even as he hopes to celebrate his 96th birthday soon, can still be found in his studio on West Broadway seven days a week.
Closing opening parties, giving interviews, this top artist has no energy left. “I want to use all the time that is left for me to paint,” he told director Suzanne Swarts van Voorlinden. She set up an attractive exhibition, with the emphasis on his latest work: monumental billboard-sized pieces that capture the viewer’s gaze clearly and compellingly like an advertising message.
‘I belonged nowhere’
In 1946, when he entered the academy, Katz was immersed in modernism: cubism, expressionism, Bauhaus, and the apotheosis of abstract art. Most of his contemporaries, such as Jasper Johns, Cy Thombly and Robert Rauschenberg, therefore opted for abstract expressionism and later Pop Art. But Katz preferred to walk his own path. Away from the emotions expressed in paint. “I didn’t belong anywhere,” he later explained. “I wasn’t a Pop Artist, but I wasn’t a realist either.”
Katz has been painting everyday life for 75 years, simply as he envisions it. But in a radical way. He likes to be inspired by the typical American visual culture, television, films and glossy magazines. As ever since his earliest works, he alternates close-ups with zoomed-out images. For Millennials and Gen Z, cropping and cropping images on social media is now part of everyday life, but around 1956 his approach was definitely innovative.
Wet-on-wet
The fact that he also knows art history like the back of his hand and has intensively studied the work of almost every great painter before him, is also clear from his work. He clearly has great admiration for Matisse in particular, but also for Manet, Monet and Picasso.
For his matt painting technique he looks further back, to the Renaissance painters. From them he also borrowed the clever technique of first making preliminary studies for large canvases on cardboard, cutting them out and poking holes in them. He then blows pigment through it, so that the contours of the figure are transferred to the canvas. This way he can quickly fill in and paint the composition wet-on-wet.
Katz, whose flat sculptures (so-called cut-outs) can also be seen in Wassenaar, recently made a number of paintings as a homage to Edgar Degas and his famous ballet dancers. Dance is a theme that he has previously depicted on the flat surface with power and conviction. By presenting the same model five times in various poses within a performance, the painter suggests a continuous movement. This effect is further enhanced by the playful rhythm of light spots falling on the dancer’s naked skin.
Cut in half
His latest invention, however, are his so-called split portraits, such as Dawn 11 and Dawn 12 . For this he cuts photos of his model in half, after which he connects the halves in an individual way in an image. In this way he succeeds – just as the Cubists already tried – to simultaneously show several perspectives in a composition.
Until 1 October in Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar.