Alex Katz Vincent on Time, 2001

Over the seven decades since his first exhibition in 1954, Alex Katz has produced a celebrated body of work, including paintings, drawings, sculpture and prints. A pre-eminent painter of modern life, he draws inspiration from films, billboard advertising, music, poetry and his close circle of friends and family. Primarily working from life, he produces images in which line and form are expressed through carefully composed strokes and planes of flat colour. In Vincent (2008), the artist depicts his son, poet and curator Vincent Katz. Katz’s minimal aesthetic and the pristine flatness of his painted surfaces anticipated Pop Art in many ways, although the artist defines his work independently of any particular movement.