Artist
Mr. Alex Katz is an American figural artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints.
Mr. Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1928 the family moved to St. Albans, Queens. From 1946 to 1949 he studied at The Cooper Union in New York, and from 1949 to 1950 he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine.
His first one-person show came in 1954: an exhibition of paintings at the Roko Gallery in New York. In 1974 The Whitney Museum of American Art showed Alex Katz Prints, followed by a traveling retrospective exhibition Alex Katz in 1986. In 1994 Cooper Union Art School created the Alex Katz Visiting Chair in Painting with the endowment provided by the sale of ten paintings donated by the artist. As of 2007, Katz is represented by Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago and Robert Miller Gallery and Pace Wildenstein in New York.
In 2008 he was the subject of a documentary directed by Heinz Peter Schwerfel, titled What About Style? Alex Katz: a Painter's Painter. Colby college presented him with an honorary doctorate in 1984. In October 1996, the Colby College Museum of Art opened a wing dedicated to Katz that features more than 400 oil paintings, collages, and prints donated by the artist. His works are held in the collections of Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art.