Alex Katz (b. 1927, Brooklyn, New York) is one of the most influential and distinctive figures in contemporary American art. Renowned for his crisp, flat surfaces, bold use of colour, and striking economy of line, Katz forged a unique visual language that emerged in the 1950s in contrast to the dominance of Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s and 1950s. His style — often seen as a precursor to Pop Art that emerged in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in America and Britain — melds elements of abstraction and representation, with influences ranging from Henri Matisse to mid-century American culture, film, and advertising.Over a prolific seven-decade career, Katz has created an expansive body of work encompassing portraiture, landscape, sculpture, and printmaking. His most iconic subjects include his wife and lifelong muse Ada, as well as friends, dancers, and fashionably dressed figures, often depicted in cropped, cinematic compositions that exude cool detachment and modern elegance. In his later years, Katz turned his focus toward nature, exploring light, seasons, and atmosphere in immersive large-scale landscapes.Katz has held over 200 solo exhibitions worldwide and his work is housed in major public collections including MoMA, the Whitney, the Tate, and Centre Pompidou. In 2022, he was honoured with a major retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, and in 2024, his monumental seasonal landscapes were displayed at MoMA in New York. That same year, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the White House, recognising his enduring impact on American visual culture.Katz lives and works in New York City and Lincolnville, Maine, continuing to paint “the immediate present” with timeless clarity and vision.

Alex Katz

With flat planes of rich, lovely color, Alex Katz’s landscapes and portraits evoke the smooth aesthetics of advertising billboards and film.

https://data.wengcontemporary.com/media/Alex_Katz_Black_Dress_Yi_Content_Sheet_1.pptx.pdf

The “black dress” has been a recurring theme in Alex Katz’s work since the very beginning of his career. This motif dates back to one of his most iconic early paintings, Black Dress (1960), which features six different views of a woman—his wife and lifelong muse, Ada — wearing a classic little black dress reminiscent of the one made famous in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961). Today, the seminal Black Dress (1960) is part of the Brandhorst Collection in Munich, Germany.&nbsp;The edition Black Dress (Yi) (2015), created and hand-redrawn by Katz between April 2014 — February 2015 in his New York City studio, is part of a portfolio of nine life-sized screen prints portraying some of the principal women Katz has painted over the years. Yi is likely a contemporary model Katz worked with for this edition — distinct from his earlier works where Ada was almost always the central figure. Each figure is shown with her upper body subtly turned to the side, one arm resting around her waist. Aside from variations in names, hair colour, and shoes, the women are strikingly similar — elegant, poised, and as if they’ve stepped out of a cocktail party.

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