Alex Katz

Description

Alex Katz is a towering figure in contemporary painting, a key New York-based artist since the early 1960s. Katz is best known for his distinct portraits of sophisticated, irresistible women, masterfully painted using precise, broad areas of colour.

Author description

Carter Ratcliff is a poet and an art critic. His books include Give Me Tomorrow (1983), a collection of poems with illustrations by Alex Katz; John Singer Sargent (1983); The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art (1998); and Out of the Box: The Reinvention of Art 1965-1975 (2000). He was awarded the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism, College Art Association, in 1987, and is a leading world expert on Alex Katz. Robert Storr is Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Formerly Senior Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2004 he curated the 5th SITE Sante Fe Biennial in New Mexico. He was a contributing author to Phaidon's Louise Bourgeois (2003), Raymond Pettibon (2001) and Robert Mangold (2000) and has written regularly for magazines such as Artforum, Art in America, Frieze and Parkett. Iwona Blazwick is Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London. As Head of Exhibitions and Display at Tate Modern, London (1997-2001), as Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1986-92), and as an independent curator, she has realized many international exhibitions of modern and contemporary art and has published texts on numerous living artists. From 1993-97 she was Commissioning Editor for Contemporary Art at Phaidon Press.