Vincent

Online caption

Vincent is the artist’s son; since his birth in 1960 he has been an habitual model in Katz’s paintings. He appears here as an adult, now a recognised poet and art critic. In recent years the two have collaborated on a range of literary and artistic projects. Katz has been painting portraits of his family and friends in New York since the 1950s; these are now seen as precursors of Pop Art. Often grand in scale, they have a slick finish and detached manner with undercurrents of melancholia. 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."

Read more