Ocean View

1992

ARTIST ROOMS: Alex Katz

Artist: Alex Katz born 1927
Medium: Oil paint on fibreboard
Dimensions: Support: 231 x 320 x 6 mm
frame: 251 x 315 x 34 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00007

Online caption

In this small study Katz has combined two of his favourite subjects: flowers and landscape. He has been painting American landscapes since the 1950s, often during summer residencies in Maine. The broad bands of colour and expressive marks reveal an interest in abstract expressionist painting. Katz is well-known for his large-scale 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."