“Springtime” by Alex Katz is a new print edition from 2026. It is based on the oil painting of the same name that Alex Katz created in 2009. Alex Katz celebrates the visual lightness of spring through a dynamic procession of female figures against a luminous, atmospheric background. Dressed in white summer dresses and straw hats, the women look directly at the viewer. What appears to be a group turns out, upon closer inspection, to be multiple representations of just two models, depicted from different angles. Here, Katz deliberately breaks with the rules of classical portraiture and instead creates a cinematic, rhythmic composition full of elegance and cool immediacy.

In an interview, Alex Katz said: “These Klines and de Koonings radiated so much energy; I wanted to create a work of art that would literally tear them off the wall.”

The work depicts a procession of six female figures. However, these are based on a clever doubling: Katz portrays only two women from multiple angles. This rhythmic repetition is reminiscent of the aesthetics of film strips and fashion spreads. In typical Katz fashion, every detail is reduced to the essentials. Flat color fields, sharp contours, and the absence of emotional drama create a timeless, striking elegance. The fresh, spring-like color palette and the interplay of light convey the immediate feeling of a warm, sunny day. The artist is not concerned with a deep psychological narrative, but rather with the pure “sensation of seeing” in the here and now.

The oil painting was sold at Christie’s in New York for USD 1,562,500 on October 1, 2024.

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.