Alex Katz U.S.A., 1928

Alex Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. In 1928, at the outset of the Depression, his family moved to St. Albans, a diverse suburb of Queens that had sprung up between the two world wars. Katz was raised by his Russian émigré parents, both of whom were interested in poetry and the arts, his mother having been an actress in Yiddish Theater. Katz attended Woodrow Wilson High School for its unique program that allowed him to devote his mornings to academics and his afternoons to the arts. In 1946, Katz entered The Cooper Union Art School in Manhattan.

In the early 1960s, influenced by films, television, and billboard advertising, Katz began painting large-scale paintings, often with dramatically cropped faces. In 1965, he also embarked on a prolific career in printmaking. Katz would go on to produce many editions in lithography, etching, silkscreen, woodcut and linoleum cut. After 1964, Katz increasingly portrayed groups of figures. He would continue painting these complex groups into the 1970s, portraying the social world of painters, poets, critics, and other colleagues that surrounded him. He began designing sets and costumes for choreographer Paul Taylor in the early 1960s, and he has painted many images of dancers throughout the years.

Beginning in 2010, Katz re-framed his subject matter, employing more drastic cropping of individual portraits. He also began composing multiple portraits using tightly cropped images of the same subject sequenced across the linen. Since 2015, Katz has frequently begun his process by taking photographs with his iPhone, which he then prints out, cuts, and collages into compositions. From these maquettes, he may make painted studies or go straight to making a large-scale cartoon, from which he paints an oil on linen. During an extended stay in Pennslyvania from spring through early summer of 2020, Katz made more than 50 paintings, mainly of flowers and landscapes he saw around him.