As is often the case with Alex Katz, he met the woman named Anne in the painting through his son Vincent, who has made a name for himself as a writer. As the author of more than 40 volumes of poetry and poetics, Anne Waldman is an active member of the experimental Outrider poetry movement and is associated with the Beat movement and the second generation of the New York School. Her publications include Fast Speaking Woman (1975), Marriage: A Sentence (2000), the multi-volume Iovis Project (1992, 1993, 1997), and Voice’s Daughter of a Heart Yet to Be Born (2016). Her work as a cultural activist and her practice of Tibetan Buddhism are deeply connected to her poetry. Anne Waldman is, in her words, “drawn to the magical effects of language as a political act.” Her commitment to poetry extends beyond her own work to include support for alternative poetry communities. Anne has collaborated extensively with visual artists, musicians, and dancers and performs regularly internationally. Her performances are intense and physical, often incorporating song, and have been captured on film and video. Born in Millville, New Jersey, Anne grew up in Manhattan with Beat poetry and jazz. Early encounters with Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, and Thelonious Monk drew her attention to the full range of musical possibilities in poetry, as did her reading of poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gertrude Stein. She was educated at Bennington College, where she studied with Howard Nemerov, Bernard Malamud, and Stanley Edgar Hyman.

Alex Katz / Pioneer of Pop Art

Alex Katz is especially famous for his figurative paintings: The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was born in New York in 1927. As a pioneer of Pop Art, he always concentrated on the essentials and early on, he dealt with simplified forms and contrasting color compositions. His art is diverse, but always has beauty as its central theme. The artist can now look back on more than 200 solo and around 500 group exhibitions; his diverse works are part of over 100 collections worldwide. Alex Katz lives and works in New York and Maine.