Alex Katz: An American Way of Seeing

Alex Katz (born 1927) has been viewed as one of the most important figurative painters in America for more than 50 years and has been a significant influence on a great number of younger painters from all over the world. Through his direct images and simple, everyday motifs that are reduced to the essential, but are presented in monumental formats, he has become a chronicler of modern life in the second half of the 20th century.

Even though the paintings with their bold, powerful colours contain many potential symbols, they do not tell any stories. Both representational and abstract, focusing more on the surface than on great depth, the works of Katz resemble film stills: the moments before and after are left to the imagination of the observer.

This catalogue is a collection of around 40 paintings from the period between 1959 and 2008, reproduced in beautifully printed colour illustrations.