Alex Katz

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The cropped, decentred composition and loose brushstrokes of this rural subject owe a debt to Japanese art. The melancholic undercurrents in this work suggest the influence of Edvard Munch. Katz has been painting the American landscape since the 1950s, often inspired by summer residencies in Maine. He is well-known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and unmodulated colours are now seen as precursors of Pop Art. Small oil paintings such as this one are sketched from life and often intended to be scaled up into larger works, but their economic execution and visible brushstrokes reveal an intimate side to his practice. He says, "A sketch is very direct. It is working empirically, inside of an idea."

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