Aquatint on Hahnemühle paper
USA, 1987
Alex Katz (b. 1927) – American New York School artist
Signed in pencil lower right ‘Alex Katz’
Numbered in pencil lower left ‘13/30’
From Light as Air portfolio
Published by Aldo Crommelynck, Paris
Full margins with deckled edges
Plate dimensions: 8 ½ x 8 ½ in. (21.6 x 21.6 cm.)
Sheet dimensions: 15 x 17 ½ in. (38.1 x 44.5 cm.)
Very good condition
Estimate $600-$800

From the portfolio of twelve works created to accompany Rob Padgett’s publication, “Light as Air,” this aquatint by Alex Katz features the artist’s recognizable style. Depicting a small, seemingly candid moments in the day of his muse, this work shows an unidentified female with dark hair. This particular print from the series features a close-up of the subject, her head turned towards the viewer and closely cropped within the plate. This composition allows us to see Katz’s highly stylized drawing technique which conveys a strong sense of emotion within a flattened picture plane.

Executed in 1987, this aquatint on Hahnemühle paper is signed and numbered thirteen from an edition of thirty. Published by Aldo Crommelynck, Paris, the work has full margins with deckled edges and measures 15 x 17 ½ inches. In overall good condition with no evidence of tears, toning, stains or repairs.

Alex Katz (American, b. 1927)

Renowned for his figurative paintings, New York School artist Alex Katz developed his highly stylized aesthetic in reaction to 1950s Abstract Expressionism. His works examine the nature of representing the three-dimensional world on two-dimensional canvas, creating portraits and landscapes. Born in Brooklyn, Katz studied painting at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. His brightly colored paintings are rendered in a flat style that takes cues from everyday visual culture, in many ways prefiguring both the formal and conceptual concerns of Pop Art which would arrive in the 1960s. Katz has held solo exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, at The Jewish Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in Spain, among other venues, and has received several honors for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He currently lives and works in New York and Maine.

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