Alex Katz was born in New York in 1927, as the son of Russian immigrant parents. He went on to attend Cooper Union in Manhattan, where he studied painting under Morris Kantor. After graduating in 1949, Katz was awarded a scholarship at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Katz’s first solo show was held at the Roko Gallery in 1954. During the 1950s, Katz began to further focus on realism in his paintings, specifically with portraiture where his wife, Ada, became his primary muse. He would use monochrome backgrounds, which would become a defining characteristic of his style, anticipating Pop Art and separating him from gestural figure painters and the New Perceptual Realism. In the 1960s, Katz became increasingly influenced by films, Television, and billboard advertising. He even designed sets and costumes for choreographer Paul Taylor. He painted more large-scale paintings and began to hone in on printmaking. He went on to produce many editions in lithography, etching, silkscreen, woodcut and linoleum cut. Throughout the 1970s, he continued to paint portraits, specifically groups of figures. He captured the social world of painters, poets, critics, and other colleagues that surrounded him. In the 1980s Katz’s subject became fashion models and designer clothing, and then larger landscape paintings in the 1990s. He continued this in the early 2000s with paintings of large scale flowers. Beginning in 2010, Katz literally re-framed his subject matter by employing more drastic cropping of the individual portraits. Alex Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions internationally since 1951. Katz has received numerous accolades throughout his career, such as the Philip Morris Distinguished Artist at the American Academy in Berlin in 2001, the Cooper Union Annual Artist of the City Award in 2000 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy Museum, New York in 2007. Works by Alex Katz can be found in over 100 public collections worldwide. Katz continues to work in an artists’ cooperative building in SoHo, New York City, where he has resided since 1968.

S E L E C T E X H I B I T I O N S

1986 . Whitney Museum OF AMERICAN ART, NY

1988 . BROOKLYN MUSUEM, NY

1995 . STAATLICHE KUNSTHALLE, BADEN-BADEN

1996 . INSTITUTO VALENCIANO DE ARTE MODERNO, VALENCIA

1997 . P.S. 1/INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, NEW YORK

1998 . THE SAATCHI GALLERY, LONDON

1999 . GALLERIA CIVICA DI ARTE CONTEMPORANEA, TRENTO

2000 . KUNST UND AUSSTELLUNGSHALLE DER BUNDESREPUBLIK
DEUTSCHLAND, BONN

2009 . ‘Alex Katz: Seeing, Drawing, Making’, The Gallery at Windsor, Vero Beach, Florida

. Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York

. “Alex Katz: Reflections,” Museo delle Arti di Catanzaro (MARCA), Calabria, Italy

. Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France

. ‘Alex Katz: An American Way of Seeing’, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland

. Musée Grenoble, Grenoble, France

. Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Kleve, Germany

. ‘ALEX KATZ: FIFTEEN MINUTES’, PaceWildenstein, New York, NY

2010 . A RETROSPECTIVE OF KATZ’S PRINT WORK WAS HELD AT THE
ALBERTINA MUSEUM IN VIENNA

2011 . James Cohan Gallery, Shanghai China

. Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York

. ‘ALEX KATZ: FIGURE AND GROUND’, Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, New York

. ‘ALEX KATZ:FACE THE MUSIC’, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris

2012 . A RETROSPECTIVE OF KATZ’S PRINT WORK AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE
ARTS, BOSTON

. Alex Katz: Seductive Elegance (New Portraits),
Meyerovich Gallery, San Francisco

. Timothy Taylor Gallery, London

. ‘ALEX KATS:MAINE/ New York’, Colby College Museum of Art, Maine

2022 . Alex Katz: dance and theatre collaborations, Colby college museum of art, Maine

. Alex Katz retrospective, Solomon r. Guggenheim Museum, new york

2023 . Museum voorlinden, wassenaar, Netherlands

. ‘Alex katz: recent print’, albertina, Vienna, Austria

. ‘Alex katz: collaborations with poets,’ poetry foundation, chicago, IL

KATZ'S WORK HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT OF MORE THAN 200 SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND NEARLY 500 GROUP EXHIBITIONS INTERNATIONALLY SINCE 1951.