 Birches, 2002 oil on canvas 10' 6-1/8" x 8' 1/8" (320.4 cm x 244.2 cm) Alex Katz Flowers and Landscapes "Flowers and Landscapes", an exhibition of new paintings by Alex Katz will be on view at PaceWildenstein. The exhibition features sixteen large-scale works painted between 2001 and 2002 that present unusual perspectives on nature subjects ranging from marigolds, magnolias, and roses to birches, woods in twilight, and a country road. While Katz is primarily known for his portraiture, nature is a subject the artist has painted consistently since the early 1950s. In "Flowers and Landscape"s, Katz explores up-close the volumes and colors created by natural light. "Nature, in Katz's work, serves not as an allegory of order or chaos, or as a surrogate for the artist's creative impulse but rather as a rapidly changing set of spaces and lights, shifting environments that surround us", writes Vincent Katz in the accompanying exhibition catalogue essay. Alex Katz first painted outdoors in Maine in 1949 while studying at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. The spontaneity and directness of working from nature made an early impact on the artist, as did Jackson Pollock's use of space, which inspired Katz's early all-over paintings of trees. Katz, who has spent summers in Maine from 1954 to the present, has used landscape in various ways: as a primary subject, as background in figurative painting, and in a kind of picture he terms "environmental", in which no horizon line is readily identifiable, and the viewer feels enveloped by the natural setting. Katz embarked on these environmental paintings following his 1986 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, first in a series of night-time cityscapes and since then, in a variety of urban and country settings. October 8 - November 8, 2003 Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30am - 6pm, Sat 10am - 5pm PaceWildenstein / 57th Street 32 E. 57th St. 2nd floor USA-New York, NY 10022 Telephone + 1 212 421 3292 Fax + 1 212 421 0835 E-Mail info@pacewildenstein.com www.pacewildenstein.com |
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