Summer Flowers 2 is a typical original graphic by artist Alex Katz with the flower motif he uses so often. In a 1968 interview, Alex Katz described his Summer Flowers as an extension of the cocktail party scenes he often painted. He noted that the flowers were “all overlapping bodies,” like the individuals in his figure groups, overlapping each other as they advanced into the pictorial space of the painting. By choosing flowers as his subject, however, he sought to introduce a greater degree of movement into the work without literally depicting anything moving, and thus focused on the unfolding form of various Summer Flowers, or spring flowers. Indeed, Summer Flowers offers a composition of volumes and voids that dance across the surface of the canvas. Alex Katz’s work uses a physically poetic language – similar to dance – that allows the viewer to adapt this structure to their own state of mind and emotional attitude. Light and form offer an unexpected syncopation of movement across the surface of his flower paintings. The oil painting that served as a model for the original print is always painted quickly and surely, wet on wet. Thus, the flowers oscillate between states of awkwardness and grace typically associated with the human body. Alex Katz’s Spring Flowers, with their blossoms and leaves, are aggressive and fierce, invalidating the congenial association that flowers usually evoke. For more than twenty years, Alex Katz has painted outdoors in Maine during the summer months near his studio and home in Lincolnville. Called plein air or outdoor painting, this painting technique is characterized by speed. Since in nature light and shadow constantly change must be painted as quickly as possible.

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 began to explore 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.

• 2024 ALEX KATZ: PORTRAITS AND LANDSCAPES, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany.
• 2024 Alex Katz: Claire, Grass and Water, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy.
  April 16, 2024 – September 29, 2024
• 2024 Alex Katz – 60 Years of Printmaking, Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin, France
• 2024 Alex Katz: Seasons, July 4th, 2024 – September 8th, 2024, Museum of Modern Art (Moma), New York, USA