Alex Katz: Small Paintings

Alex Katz: Small Paintings features small-scale oil paintings by the renowned American artist. Katz, born in New York in 1927, studied painting at the Cooper Union School of Art from 1946 to 1949. He has developed an original realist style of painting, having begun his career at the end of the ʻ50s, during the years of Abstract Expressionism. 

For more than sixty years, Katz has produced small paintings. These preparatory sketches or studies – while autonomous in their own right – serve as a starting point for his larger works, for which the artist is best known. Katz’s small paintings reveal a side to his process that is highly gestural and more instinctive. The details in the brush strokes on this intimate scale allow the viewer to establish a closer physical and spatial relationship to the works. In turn, they present an alternative perspective to Katz’ larger pieces and are, in and of themselves, masterful paintings.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website