About The Art

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Alex Katz: Collaborations with Poets
September 15-November 17, 2024

The Butler Institute of American Art is pleased to present Alex Katz: Collaborations with Poets, the first exhibition to bring together the full range of materials that display Katz’s extensive collaborations with poets of the New York School. First exhibited at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago in 2023, Alex Katz: Collaborations with Poets opens at the Butler Institute on September 15, 2024, with an expanded presentation that includes paintings and cutouts new to this venue. This exhibition traveled from the Poetry Foundation in Chicago and was organized with guidance from Alex Katz, Vincent Katz, and GRAY.

Collaborations with Poets offers an intimate look at Alex Katz’s longtime collaborative engagement with poets, and spans work created over the past 60 years, including prints, portfolios, special-edition books, paintings, and unique cutouts, all which center on Katz’s communion and intersection with poets throughout his career.

“The career of Alex Katz has been one of inspiration and innovation,”
says Executive Director of The Butler Institute of American Art, Dr. Louis Zona. “Forever remaining in my memory is the large self-portrait which graced the entrance gallery at the Museum of Modern Art. Generations of artists have been inspired by his unique approach to portraiture and by his long-time influence on the New York School. The Butler Institute of American Art rolls out the red carpet in welcoming this genius of American art.”

One of the most recognized and widely exhibited artists of his generation, Alex Katz came of age between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. The artist began exhibiting his work in 1954, and since that time has established himself as a preeminent painter of modern life whose distinctive portraits and lyrical landscapes bear a flattened surface and consistent economy of line. As Katz entered the art world in the 1950s, a new style of American poetry emerged, and the painterfound natural affinities to the poets in their shared interest in expressing contemporary living. Katz’s developed a deep interest in poetry, an art form whose methodologies and tactics he considered “more stimulating than painting.”

A reception will be held September 15, 2024, from 1-3 PM, with a reading from Vincent Katz, an acclaimed poet, translator, curator, and critic. Vincent Katz is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Broadway for Paul, Southness, Swimming Home, and Rapid Departures. He is also coauthor of Fantastic Caryatids, a collaboration with Anne Waldman. The reception will also feature the screening of a video, In Dialogue with Alex Katz and Vincent Katz, to be shown in Zona Auditorium. The poetry reading will take place after the video.

PUBLICATION
The exhibition at The Butler Institute also marks the reprint of the comprehensive exhibition publication, Alex Katz: Collaborations with Poets. This expanded volume features an in-depth essay written by art historian and curator Debra Bricker Balken and comprehensive illustrations of Alex Katz’s book covers, print portfolios, and unique artworks that center on his work with poets such as John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, and Ron Padgett.

ABOUT ALEX KATZ
Preeminent figurative painter Alex Katz (b. 1927, Brooklyn, New York) is
widely celebrated for his iconic portraits and depictions of modern life. His earliest work took inspiration from various aspects of mid-century
American culture and society, including television, film, and advertising.
Over the past five and a half decades, Katz has established himself as one of the most distinguished figurative painters of his generation, whose portraits and lyrical landscapes bear a flattened surface and consistent economy of line. Utilizing characteristically wide brushstrokes, large swathes of color, and refined compositions, Katz created what art historian Robert Storr called “a new and distinctive type of realism in American art which combines aspects of both abstraction and representation.”

Since the 1950s, Alex Katz’s work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions around the world. His work can be found in nearly 100 public collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among many others.

ABOUT GRAY
GRAY is a globally recognized team of art professionals devoted to fostering the development of historically important artists’ careers and to building outstanding art collections. Founded in 1963, GRAY has built its reputation as a resource for Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary art with prominent private and institutional clients worldwide. Known for producing critically acclaimed exhibitions and programming from its galleries in Chicago and New York, GRAY represents a roster of internationally recognized artists such as McArthur Binion, Jim Dine, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates, David Hockney, Rashid Johnson, Alex Katz, Ellen Lanyon, Jaume Plensa, Leon Polk Smith, and Evelyn Statsinger.

Image: Alex Katz, Ada and Edwin (Blue Series), 1965. © Alex Katz

For exhibition information, contact Susan Carfano, soozatbutler@gmail.com
For press inquiries, please contact Rebecca Daniel Mottley, rebecca@mottleypr.com.

The Butler Institute of American Art 524 Wick Avenue Youngstown, OH
44502

richardgraygallery.com

CATEGORIES: Exhibition

DATE: September 15, 2024 - November 17, 2024

LOCATION: Davis & Giffuni Galleries

RECEPTION: September 15th, 2023 1:00pm—3:00pm (Exhibition opening + reading from Vincent Katz + video screening of In Dialogue with Alex Katz and Vincent Katz in Zona Auditorium)