Alex Katz: Ladies & Landscapes

A L E X K AT Z L A D I E S & L A N D S CA P E S

Alex Katz Ladies & Landscapes

Jim Kempner Fine Art is pleased to announce Alex Katz Ladies & Landscapes, an exhibition of prints, sculpture, and paintings by renowned American artist Alex Katz. The exhibition, which focuses on women and natural landscapes, will open Thursday, October 27th and will remain on view through December 4th, 2016. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, October 27th from 6-8 pm.

Known for his flattened, smoothly stylized figure painting, Katz developed his pictorial style in the 1950s when Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting were dominating the American art scene. His loyalty to figurative painting and popular culture went against the trends of his contemporaries, refining a style of distinct shapes, shallow depth, bright uniform colors, and reduced expressiveness that preceded the Pop Art movement. Although he is primarily recognized for his portraits, Katz has been painting trees, flowers, and natural landscapes since the 1950s. This exhibition explores the delicate women central to the artist’s oeuvre, in addition to the natural landscapes he has been depicting since his experience with ‘plein air’ painting in Skowhegan, ME, in 1949-1950.

Alex Katz began working seriously with print mediums in the 1960s. Among the works in the show is Ariel, a 26 color silkscreen from 2016 that evokes the vitality of a quintessentially American woman. Ariel shows three iterations of the same woman moving across the image frame. The women in Ariel and Brisk Day elicit the intimism that has been distinctive in Katz’s portraiture for the past six decades. Grey Linden #2, a unique oil painting on board, is an example of his more painterly renditions of natural landscapes. It is more gestural than the linear, abstracted portraits. In Chance, a new tabletop sculptural multiple, Katz reconfigured three individual relief portraits from the 1960s to create a playful narrative of three bathers with beach balls. A monumental version of Chance was exhibited in the fountain outside Mayfair’s Connaught Hotel on June 21 to celebrate the Katz exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Alex Katz was born in 1927 in Brooklyn, NY. He studied at the Cooper Union, NY from 1946-1949 and at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME from 1949-1950. His works have been the subject of many international solo exhibitions and retrospectives. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid. His current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, titled Alex Katz at the MET, displays eight drawings, prints, paintings, and cut outs acquired through the generosity of Glenn Fuhrman, Leonard A. Lauder, and Katz himself.

Chance, 2016.

UV archival inks on aluminum/stainless steel base.

21 3/4 x 37 x 4�. Edition 50.

Ariel, 2016.

Hand-pulled, 26 color silkscreen.

36 x 72�. Edition 56.

Tara, 2008.

Oil on linen.

50 x 40�.

Urban Oak V, 2004.

Oil on board.

12 x 9”.

Grey Linden #2, 2001.

Oil on board.

12 x 9”.

Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Brisk Day I, 1990.

Aquatint.

36 x 29”. Edition 150.

Brisk Day II, 1990.

Silkscreen.

36 x 29”. Edition 150.

Brisk Day III, 1990.

Woodcut.

36 x 29”. Edition 150.

Whtie Impatiens, 2015.

Screenprint.

70 x 56�. Edition 60.

Study for Connie, 1988.

Oil on masonite.

16 x 12�.

Sasha 2, 2016 Archival pigment print.

34 x 34�. Edition 100.

Kym, 2011.

Lithograph, screenprint, and woodcut printed in colors.

27 x 32 1/2�. Edition 50.

Nicole, 2016.

Woodcut and Linocut.

32 1/2 x 71�. Edition 60.

Kate (White and Blue), 2006-07.

Cyanotype.

45 1/8 x 29 5/8”. Edition 25.

Reflection, 2010.

Screenprint.

58 x 58”. Edition 50.

Cityscape, 2016 Archival pigment print.

30 x 21 1/2�. Edition 90.

Vivien, 2012.

41-color silkscreen.

39 x 41”. Edition 60.

Sara, 2012.

32-color silkscreen.

39 x 41”. Edition 60.

Sophie, 2012.

38-color silkscreen.

39 x 41”. Edition 60.

Red House, 2016 Archival pigment print 34 x 36�. Edition of 70.

Late Summer Flowers, 2013.

38-color silkscreen.

40 x 55�. Edition 50.

JIM KEMPNER FINE ART Jim Kempner Fine Art specializes in contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper, with a special emphasis on contemporary master prints and outdoor sculpture. Our inventory appeals to the established as well as beginning collector. We work closely with art advisors, designers, corporations and museums to expand and enrich their varied collections.

Located in the heart of Chelsea, the gallery’s three story modernist-inspired structure designed by architects Smith & Thompson boasts one of the few outdoor sculpture gardens in New York City, and is included in a number of books about contemporary architecture.

Our inventory includes work by Donald Baechler, John Baldessari, Louise Bourgeois, Christo, Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Jim Dine, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Spencer Finch, Jane Hammond, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Jasper Johns, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, William Kentridge, Jeff Koons, Robert Mangold, Robert Motherwell (Jim Kempner Fine Art represents the Dedalus Foundation, Robert Motherwell’s print archive, in New York), Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Elizabeth Peyton, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Paula Scher, Sean Scully, Frank Stella, Donald Sultan, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol and others.

Among the contemporary artists whose work we represent are Robert Attanasio, Christopher Beane, Stanley Casselman, Long Bin Chen, Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gómez, Rinaldo Frattolillo, Gianfranco Gorgoni, John Grande, John Henry, Charlie Hewitt, Jay Kelly, Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, Jerry Mischak, David Mitchell, Craig Norton, Greg Parker, Robert Petersen, Randy Regier, Tom Slaughter, Pal Svensson and Boaz Vaadia.

Formerly a private dealer, Jim Kempner opened his gallery, Jim Kempner Fine Art, at its present location in the fall of 1997. Dru Arstark has been the gallery director since 1998 and Sarah Bielicky has been the associate director since 2011. Jim Kempner has published prints by Rinaldo Frattolillo, Charlie Hewitt, Robert Indiana, Paula Scher, Bernar Venet, in addition to Gianfranco Gorgoni’s photographs of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Other publications include Ligorano/Reese’s Line Up portfolio, Untitled 2001 silkscreen, and the DEMOCRACY lightbox, made in collaboration with gallery director Dru Arstark, under the name Madness of Art Editions. Additionally, he has published his first editioned print, Apocryphal Now, in 2014.

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