By Stacy Yip, News Correspondent
The Museum of Fine Arts is hosting an exhibition of artist Alex Katz exhibition from now through July 29th.The exhibition focuses on some of the artist’s well known prints. The prints were first shown in Vienna’s Albertina collection of graphic art, which features famous and contemporary artists.
The Alex Katz Prints collection displays his interest in abstract art but also followed his “instinct to work from life,” according to MFA curators. CS Ackley, author of “British Prints From The Machine Age,” describes his drawings and prints to be bold, graphic, cool and sensual. Katz has worked with a wide range of media, from screen print and lithography to Western and Japanese woodcut techniques and linoleum cuts. Katz uses the method of printing artwork on different textured paper. The exhibit holds 100 of Katz’s printed works and each gallery focuses on a theme of Katz’s different artistic approaches and subjects throughout his life, including people, fashion, landscapes and poetry.
The first gallery focuses mainly on his wife and muse, Ada, his son Vincent and daughter-in-law Vivien. Most of Katz’s works are extreme close-ups. Screenprints “Orange Hat” and “Ada in a Hat” display Kat’s interest in fashion. “Anne” is another screen print in color placed on cut aluminum. Ackley said that “Katz deliberately shoes away from psychological characterization or storytelling.”
Katz was also greatly interested in contemporary poets and their work. For his portfolio, “Face of the Poet,” he made portraits of 14 different poets. Each plate is shaped to the poet’s silhouette. The set also contains a typeset poem by each of the writers.
One of the most iconic and easily recognizable prints Katz made of Ada features a tight view on her cropped body and a detailed attention to fashion. This piece, titled “Red Coat,” is a color screen print, and it not only displays Katz’s signature elements but also his interest in fashion.
Katz also created prints on landscape. He was attentive to the light and the strong colors of the landscape. His works are vibrant, clear and precise. Many of his prints take place in downtown Manhattan Park and coastal beaches of Maine.
The final gallery room of Alex Katz prints is called “Rush.” This gallery contains 37 portraits of artists, poets, dancers, critics and other acquaintances. This part of the portfolio is named “Rush” because Katz’s believed being face-to-face with some of the great American cultural figures of the last half century might result in a buzz of “rush” of adrenaline and delight. While the exhibit has many elements it is fairly accessible and has the potential to appeal to many NU students.
