21 1/2 x 29 1/2 in., 27 3/4 x 35 3/4 in. (framed). Lithograph. pencil signed. Being sold in as found condition. Was found in a Miami storage unit with damage and is in need of restoration. Please see all photos for condition. The son of Russian immigrants, Alex Katz was born July 24, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Queens in a liberal, Bohemian setting. He is a figure painter of realistic portraits of friends and family, and his figures are usually relaxed close-ups from a frontal perspective and appear in a flattened manner. With his artwork, he strives to convey the feeling that it is good to be alive. It has been said that his style highly influenced the popularity of New Realism in the 1970s. Along with his associates Al Held and Philip Pearlstein, and others who were struggling against the 'titanic presences of Pollock and de Kooning' and other abstract expressionists.Katz studied three years (1946-49) at Cooper Union and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine from 1949-50. During the 1960s, he was an art educator with teaching positions in New York City at the New York Studio School and School of Visual Arts; in New Haven at Yale University; and in Brooklyn at Pratt Institute. He also supported himself by making hand-carved frames and designing stage sets and costumes in 1960 and 1964 for the Paul Taylor Dance Company for their performances at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. By 1954, Alex Katz had his first one-person show at the Roko Gallery in New York. The following year he began making cut paper collages. His wife, Ada, has been his model since they married in 1958. He works from a studio in SoHo, and they have lived in the same loft since 1968.Exhibitions include:1974Alex Katz Prints, a traveling exhibition at The Whitney Museum of American Art1986Alex Katz, a traveling retrospective exhibition at The Whitney Museum of American Art1988Alex Katz: A Print Retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum of Art1995Alex Katz: American Landscape at Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany1996Alex Katz at I.V.A.M. Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain1996Alex Katz: A Drawing Retrospective, a traveling exhibition at Munson-Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, New York1996-98Alex Katz Under the Stars: American Landscapes 1951-1995, organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art/P.S. 1 Museum, opens at the Baltimore Museum of art; traveling to the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach Florida; the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine; and P.S. 1 Museum, New York1998Alex Katz: Twenty Five Years of Painting at The Saatchi Collection, London, England1999 Alex Katz at Galleria Civica Di Arte Contemporanea, Trento, Italy.2000 Regarding Alex Katz at Carnegie Museum of Art , Pittsburgh.2001 Alex Katz Small Paintings at Addison Gallery of American Art Phillips Academy, Andover.2002 Alex Katz Small Paintingsat Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover.at Whitney Museum of American Art, New Yorkat Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New Yorkat Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, March 22-June 2, 2002at Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma City, OKat The Austin Museum of Art, Austin, February 15-May 4 2003Sources include:Alex Katz's website: http://alexkatz.com/bio.htmlMatthew Baigell, Dictionary of American ArtMichael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art

Was found in a Miami storage unit with damage and is in need of restoration. Please see all photos for condition.