Artist Bio

Alex Katz born July 24, 1927, is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints. Katz achieved great public prominence in the 1980s. He is well known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and heightened colors are now seen as precursors to Pop Art. Graduating from the New York School, Katz developed his highly stylized aesthetic in reaction to 50’s era Abstract Expressionism.

Katz’s work is in the collections of over 100 public institutions worldwide, including the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Carnegie Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; Cleveland Museum of Art; the Tate Gallery, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo; the National galerie, Berlin; and the Museum Brandhorst, Munich.

Throughout his career, Katz has been the recipient of numerous awards, including The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for Painting in 1972, and in 1987, both Pratt Institute’s Mary Buckley Award for Achievement and The Queens Museum of Art Award for Lifetime Achievement.