Alex Katz

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Katz began painting beach scenes in the late 1990s, painting 'en plein air' in an attempt to grasp the colours and light of a specific moment. In this Florida beach scene he explores the quiet atmosphere of artificial light after midnight. Katz has been painting portraits of his family and friends since the 1950s; these are now seen as precursors to 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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