Alex Katz Biography
Alex Katz, born July 24, 1927, is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints. He is represented by numerous international galleries. Alex Katz was born on July 24, 1927 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, as the son of an émigré who had lost a factory he owned in Russia to the Soviet revolution. In 1928 the family moved to St. Albans, Queens, where Katz grew up. From 1946 to 1949 he studied at the Cooper Union in New York, and from 1949 to 1950 he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine. Skowhegan exposed him to painting from life, which would be instrumental in his development as a painter and remains a staple of his practices today. Katz explains that Skowhegan's plein air painting gave him "a reason to dedicate my life to painting." Every year, from early June to mid-September, Katz moves from his SoHo loft to a 19th-century frame farmhouse in Lincolnville, Maine. A summer resident of Lincolnville since 1954, he developed a close relationship with the local Colby College. From 1954 to 1960, he made a series of small collages of still lifes, Maine landscapes, and small figures. In 1957, he met Ada Del Moro, who had studied biology at New York University, at a gallery opening. In 1960, Katz had her first (and only) child, Vincent.
