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Lot Essay
‘Light is the initial flash of what you see; that’s what I’m after. People ask me about the colours, but the colours are irrelevant. I can change the colours as long as I’ve got the light. People think that my colours are really specific but they’re not because I’m looking for an overall light.' ALEX KATZ
This stunning work by Alex Katz, Dappled Light, exemplifies the subtle beauty of his wife, Ada, whilst demonstrating Katz’s dazzling atmospheric exploration of natural light. In between semesters at his alma mater, the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, Katz travelled to Maine, where he enrolled in a number of summer courses at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture. In Maine he learnt how to paint en plein air, recording outdoor light with fluidity and accuracy; this technique was to become instrumental during his productive career. In Katz’s own words, ‘each image reads like a ripe, forceful slice of light that lives and dies comfortably within the span of the frame but still must be consumed promptly if it is to be caught’ (A. Katz, quoted in Alex Katz: Quick Light, exh. cat., Serpentine Gallery, London, 2016, p. 5). Like his interpretive treatment of Ada, which depends on fleeting moments of intimacy, Katz records landscapes that are ever-changing and temporal, grounded in personal experience and idiosyncratic interpretation. This approach to light and landscape conjures an immediate and characterful ambiance perfectly suited to support the depiction of his muse.
Amongst landscaped greenery, Ada appears almost as a vision in full-frontal pose. Unlike earlier portraits, in which Katz interprets Ada from a close angle, here he distances the viewer from his subject, as physically unattainable as a photographic memory. The softened edges of Ada, along with the lucid interpretation of the background, are accomplished by Katz working wet in wet, possessing his muse and his landscape with an ethereal glow. However, although this brushwork is emotionally impressionistic, the study of light is less lethargic; as Katz notes, ‘My paintings don’t look aggressive when you’re near them, but if you put them next to other people’s paintings, you’ll see they’re very aggressive. And it has to do with the light, which is quick. Impressionist light is slow, de Kooning and Pollock’s light was quick, and John Singer Sargent’s light is very quick. I wanted that quick light so the painting comes out really fast at you’ (ibid., p. 13).
This stunning work by Alex Katz, Dappled Light, exemplifies the subtle beauty of his wife, Ada, whilst demonstrating Katz’s dazzling atmospheric exploration of natural light. In between semesters at his alma mater, the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, Katz travelled to Maine, where he enrolled in a number of summer courses at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture. In Maine he learnt how to paint en plein air, recording outdoor light with fluidity and accuracy; this technique was to become instrumental during his productive career. In Katz’s own words, ‘each image reads like a ripe, forceful slice of light that lives and dies comfortably within the span of the frame but still must be consumed promptly if it is to be caught’ (A. Katz, quoted in Alex Katz: Quick Light, exh. cat., Serpentine Gallery, London, 2016, p. 5). Like his interpretive treatment of Ada, which depends on fleeting moments of intimacy, Katz records landscapes that are ever-changing and temporal, grounded in personal experience and idiosyncratic interpretation. This approach to light and landscape conjures an immediate and characterful ambiance perfectly suited to support the depiction of his muse.
Amongst landscaped greenery, Ada appears almost as a vision in full-frontal pose. Unlike earlier portraits, in which Katz interprets Ada from a close angle, here he distances the viewer from his subject, as physically unattainable as a photographic memory. The softened edges of Ada, along with the lucid interpretation of the background, are accomplished by Katz working wet in wet, possessing his muse and his landscape with an ethereal glow. However, although this brushwork is emotionally impressionistic, the study of light is less lethargic; as Katz notes, ‘My paintings don’t look aggressive when you’re near them, but if you put them next to other people’s paintings, you’ll see they’re very aggressive. And it has to do with the light, which is quick. Impressionist light is slow, de Kooning and Pollock’s light was quick, and John Singer Sargent’s light is very quick. I wanted that quick light so the painting comes out really fast at you’ (ibid., p. 13).