Alex Katz

Ada and Flowers. 1980. Oil on canvas, 96 x 72". G.U.C. Collection, Chicago

The Gray Dress. 1982. Oil on canvas, 6' 1/2" x 15'. Collection Stephen L. Wald, New York.

The content of Katz's paintings is seemingly simple, but actually quite complex; what seems to be suspended judgment by the painter is actually subtly interpretive. Though the images do not launch themselves at us, we may still be as surprised, in the end, as if they did. Given that nothing is easy, Katz is painting as simply and as gracefully as he can, and he is asking us to see where grace - or the lack of it - resides in his subject matter. In the best of the paintings, what begins as mimesis finally radiates as metaphor. (Anne Beattie)

Excerpt from the book Alex Katz by Ann Beattie, 1987, Abrams