The lily has a long art-historical meaning and also a meaningful symbolism, its meaning has changed depending on the epoch and place. In heraldry the plant is used especially since the Middle Ages and decorated as a symbol signs, church windows, walls or fence tips. The stylized fleur-de-lis was particularly popular with the French royal family, but in variations it can also be found in many other European country and family coats of arms.

The series of flowers like his Summerflowers and especially those of the Yellow Flags show Alex Katz’s dedicated interest in the natural environment. He presents his floral subjects in tightly cut compositions, which he skilfully distils down to their basic components.
The iris pictures, which were created in the artist’s studio in Maine, recall his first encounter with painting en plein air in 1949 at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.  Painting studies are of paramount importance to Katz’s studio practice, as he works from life to capture the fleeting inspirational moment when designing the paintings. Only after he has refined the studies to convey the essence of his subjects does Katz translate the compositions onto a larger canvas. This technique, confirms poet and critic John Yau, is “Katz’s way of remaining faithful to the shock of original perception… His theme is the presence of seeing, not something to be remembered at leisure”.

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.