The challenge for Alex Katz was to paint an image that could evoke the reaction he experienced when looking at great paintings. Engaging with the primary structures of novelty art was a way out for him. Novelty inventions and gimmicks can have fashion and style, but have much less excitement than a great painting. Si once said Alex Katz: “Painting does not need you. You have to need painting. Painting has to become you.”

Alex Katz has had a lifelong affinity for Maine ever since he spent a summer at the Skowhegan Artist Residency, where he fell in love with plein air landscape painting. This also led to many motifs on the beach or just in the summer with the typical sun hats.

Fashion and fashion as here in the work Orange Hat have always been part of Alex Katz work. So he portrayed for the first time in your life the famous Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. “I was told that it was the first time she was painted, which is kind of amazing,” he says.

Alex Katz is known for working quickly, painting wet-on-wet and often completing his works in a single sitting. He has been married for more than 60 years: he calls his wife Ada his “muse” – she is one of his most frequent subjects. Ada is also featured in Orange Hat from the Alex and Ada portfolio.

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.