1993
Flat color and minimal forms contrast the often monumental scales of the paintings by Alex Katz through which he creates portraits and landscapes of deceptive simplicity. Although the signature stark style that defines his prints and other work is now recognizable at a glance, it took him a decade to develop. During that time, he has said he destroyed hundreds of paintings.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian émigré parents, Katz’s family moved to Queens when he was a baby and that is where his family’s passion for the arts supported his early creative interests. In 1946, he enrolled at the Cooper Union in Manhattan where he studied painting under Morris Kantor. While he was influenced by the bold colors and hard edges of modernism, he shifted away from the then-dominant Abstract Expressionism movement to figurative scenes of life that have an inherent cool in their pared-down approach. Especially impactful were Katz’s summer studies between 1949 and 1950 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, a place where, as he later wrote: “I tried plein air painting and found my subject matter and a reason to devote my life to painting.”
Katz’s first solo show was in 1954 at Roko Gallery in New York. He experimented over the course of the following years with collage and painting on aluminum sheets, with his work in the 1960s drawing inspiration from film and advertising. In the 1970s, Katz expanded into portrait groups that regularly depicted the cultural scene of New York; in the 1980s, he extended his focus to fashion and its supermodels. Since the late 1950s, an enduring muse for his portraits has been his wife, Ada, while others have painted friends and famous figures. The intimate closeness of the frequently cropped faces in Katz’s portraits exudes a sense of tension with the subjects’ enigmatic expressions and planes of color.
In the 1960s, Katz collaborated with American dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor on sets and costumes. His concentration on landscapes emerged in the late 1980s, with atmospheric night views joining his practice, which had previously been defined by bright colors. Always finding new perspectives on his work, he has explored using iPhone photographs as the basis for large-scale compositions in recent years.
Katz’s prolific career has spanned sculpture, prints and public art along with his paintings and drawings, and his works can be found in the collections of leading museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art. He has had over 250 solo exhibitions around the world and continues to be acclaimed. In 2022, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened a major retrospective of his art.
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H 29.93 in W 22.84 in D 0.04 in
Salvador Dali - La Fontaine Portrait - Handsigned Engraving
By Salvador Dalí
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Salvador Dali - La Fontaine Portrait - Handsigned Engraving 1974 Hand signed by Dali Edition: /250 The dimensions of the image are 22.8 x 15.7 inches on 31 x 23.2 inch paper Referenc...
Drypoint, Aquatint
H 25.875 in W 20 in
Alexander Calder Etching and Aquatint in Colors, Abstract, Signed, 1974, "Devil"
By Alexander Calder
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: Alexander Calder Title: Devil Medium: Etching and aquatint in colors Date: 1974 Edition: 20/80 Sheet Size: 25 7/8" x 20" Image Size: 19 1/8" x 13 1/2" Signature: Hand signed ...
Lithograph, Aquatint
H 5.91 in W 3.94 in
14th Street Oriental
By Isabel Bishop
Located in Middletown, NY
New York, Associated American Artists, 1950. Drypoint and aquatint on cream wove paper, 5 7/8 x 3 15/16 inches (150 x 100 mm), full margins. Signed and numbered 48/50 in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Stephen Sholinsky...
Drypoint, Aquatint
H 19.5 in W 15.75 in
Caius Julius Caesar Octivanius Augustus, Dadaist Aquatint Etching by Enrico Baj
By Enrico Baj
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Enrico Baj, Italian (1924 - 2003) Title: Caius Julius Caesar Octivanius Augustus Year: 1972 Medium: Aquatint Etching with Collage, Signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 24/7...
Mixed Media, Etching, Aquatint
H 19.5 in W 15.75 in
Caius Flavius from The Romans by Enrico Baj
By Enrico Baj
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Enrico Baj, Italian (1924 - 2003) Title: Caius Flavius Valerius Claudius Constantinus Year: 1972 Medium: Aquatint Etching with Collage, Signed and numbered in pencil Edition:...
Mixed Media, Etching, Aquatint
H 33.38 in W 66.88 in
White Visor
By Alex Katz
Located in Miami, FL
TECHNICAL INFORMATION Alex Katz White Visor 2003 Etching Aquatint 33 3/8 x 66 7/8 in. Edition of 75 Pencil signed & numbered Accompanied with COA by Gregg Shienbaum Fine Art ...
Etching, Aquatint
H 19.5 in W 15.75 in
Flavius Valerius from The Romans, Modern Aquatint Etching by Enrico Baj
By Enrico Baj
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Enrico Baj, Italian (1924 - 2003) Title: Flavius Valerius Constantinus Chlorus Year: 1972 Medium: Aquatint Etching with Collage, Signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 24/70;...
Mixed Media, Etching, Aquatint
"Mes Petites Amies, Les Deux Sœurs" signed by Jacques Villon
By Jacques Villon
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This is a drypoint and aquatint artwork by Jacques Villon. The artist signed in pencil on the lower right. As well as signed in plate at the top right of the image. This is a wonderful artwork of different intaglio processes being brought together in a beautiful almost seamless harmony. The thin pencil like markings and hair detailing are made using the Drypoint printmaking method. Whilst the color details around the girls are made using the Aquatint etching method. Jacques Villon shows his skills as a printmaker with the way these pieces line up perfectly and with how clean the rest of the plate is around the girls. An unnumbered impression, apart from the numbered edition of 50. Catalogue Raisonne E101, pg. 66-67 (Ginestet & Pouillon. It depicts two young girls. 15" x 11 1/2" art 25 1/8" x 20" frame French painter, printmaker and illustrator. The oldest of three brothers who became major 20th-century artists, including Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp, he learnt engraving at the age of 16 from his maternal grandfather, Emile-Frédéric Nicolle (1830-94), a ship-broker who was also a much appreciated amateur artist. In January 1894, having completed his studies at the Lycée Corneille in Rouen, he was sent to study at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris, but within a year he was devoting most of his time to art, already contributing lithographs to Parisian illustrated newspapers such as Assiette au beurre. At this time he chose his pseudonym: Jack (subsequently Jacques) in homage to Alphonse Daudet’s novel Jack (1876) and Villon in appreciation of the 15th-century French poet François Villon...
Drypoint, Aquatint, Etching, Intaglio
Fan Art, In Front of Mirror, by Yuji Hiratsuka
By Yuji Hiratsuka
Located in Palm Springs, CA
Medium: Intaglio and Chine Colle Year: 2020 Image Size: 18 x 12 inches Edition of 15 Signed, titled and numbered by the artist. A young woman with traditional Japanese fan in front ...
Etching, Aquatint
H 25.75 in W 19.5 in
Portrait de Jeune Fille Portrait of a Girl 1970 original aquatint Leonor Fini
By Leonor Fini
Located in Paonia, CO
Portrait de Jeune Fille is a haunting portrait of a young girl also known as .. Justine… she could be either fading into the distance or just materializing out of a dream state. Her hair and the air around her is in shades of pale blue and the background is the white of the paper. This is a limited edition ( 170/300) aquatint , signed in the plate. In good condition with a 1" repaired tear midway on the right border which will not show when framed. Argentinian-born artist Leonor Fini (1907-1996) is considered one of the great female artists of the twentieth century. She moved to Paris in the early 1930’s where she spent most of her life and almost immediately formed friendships with Salvador Dali, Cartier- Bresson, Max Ernst and other intellectuals of the time. At twenty five she had her first one person show in Paris and was included in the 1936 pivotal exhibition at MOMA…Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism…..and that same year had an exhibition at a famous avant garde gallery in New York. Although Fini never considered herself a Surrealist she maintained close personal relationships with several members of the group. One can see how their ideology influenced her work but she remained firmly rooted in the tradition of Symbolism, Metaphysics and Italian and German Romanticism Her works can be found in most important collections of modern art around the world. Fini was renowned as a portraitist and as a painter of erotic sexual tensions with a mysterious atmosphere. She was adamant about being independent and not belonging to any one group. She lived life on her own terms and is sometimes referred to as …..the female Dali. She was also involved with designing for fashion and creating elaborate sets for opera and theatre. As a feminist she was definitely ahead of the times. She produced the first erotic male nude...
Aquatint
Portraits: Yvonne
By Alex Katz
Located in New York, NY
Alex Katz uses outline drawings, called “cartoons”, as templates to transfer full size images onto the canvas prior to painting. Rendered in red chalk or charcoal on brown paper, th...
Etching
Portraits: Alba
By Alex Katz
Located in New York, NY
Alex Katz uses outline drawings, called “cartoons”, as templates to transfer full size images onto the canvas prior to painting. Rendered in red chalk or charcoal on brown paper, th...
Etching
Portraits: Anne
By Alex Katz
Located in New York, NY
Alex Katz uses outline drawings, called “cartoons”, as templates to transfer full size images onto the canvas prior to painting. Rendered in red chal...
Etching
Portraits: Jessica
By Alex Katz
Located in New York, NY
Alex Katz uses outline drawings, called “cartoons”, as templates to transfer full size images onto the canvas prior to painting. Rendered in red chal...
Etching
Untitled (Horses)
By Laura Owens
Located in New York, NY
Los Angeles-based artist, Laura Owens' horse prints often incorporate her characteristic style, which challenges traditional assumptions about figuration and abstraction . Her work f...
Etching, Aquatint
Two Open Squares Within a Red Area
By Robert Mangold
Located in New York, NY
Associated with the Minimalist art movement of the 1960s, Mangold developed a reductive vocabulary based on geometric forms, monochromatic color, and an emphasis on the flatness of t...
Paper, Etching, Aquatint
