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Alex Katz

Alex Katz

Alex Katz was born in New York on July 24, 1927. He began studying art in 1946 at the Cooper Union Art School in New York, and continued in Maine at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1949. His work resists definition, but often serves as a synthesis of abstraction and realism, two seemingly opposing styles that began surfacing in competition with one another in post-World War II American art. Katz borrows simultaneously from the Abstract Expressionists and the Pop Artists: his work concentrates on the use of space and employs symbols of popular American culture. Katz’s use of light is particularly striking; his images flatten and are reduced to simple lines and colors. Katz’s work has been displayed in solo shows, group shows, and retrospectives in most major modern art museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Brooklyn Museum.

Art