25 July – 28 August 2014

45 Years of Portraits 1969 – 2014 comprised historical paintings from the 1960s and '70s, as well as more recent works dating from the 1980s up to the present day. These included large-scale pictures and intimate, cursory sketches, as well as Katz's less well-known Cut-Outs, painted on thin metal sheets so that they look like autonomous silhouettes detached from the composition.

The theme was figure, interpreted both as outline and as form or line. A considerable proportion of Katz's work is concerned with portrait and reproduction or representation of the body.

"His self-portraits are like confessions of faith. On the one hand, they stand in the tradition linking Rembrandt with Bonnard, and on the other they satirise these." – Adrien Goetz, 2014

Katz's motifs, inspired by alternating male and female models, concentrated on friends and family. Over the years, he returned repeatedly to his favourite models, like a mechanical reproduction. He even multiplied the individual person, for instance juxtaposing the double portrait Laure and Alain, painted in 1964, with another one from 1991. The two pictures were identical in composition and persons portrayed. Katz's urged to repeat pictures identically offers an insight into the development of his painting over an extended period.

The exhibition 45 Years Of Portraits 1969 – 2014 invited the viewer to look at the artist in relation to the European tradition.

"Katz is a museum artist: he helps us to see the artists whose work is already hanging in museums. He has taken a look at them, and we understand them through his work – and not only the artists of the two generations that worked parallel with him. There have already been endless discussions as to how Katz relates to Pollock, Rothko, Lichtenstein and the like. Perhaps it is now time to consider him in relation to Manet, Degas and Ingres." – Adrien Goetz, 2014