Post War and Contemporary Art

Provenance:

Private Collection, New Jersey

DC Moore Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2002

Exhibited:

Salt Lake City, Utah, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Alex Katz, January 7 - February 7, 1971 (reproduced in catalogue in B&W)

San Diego, California, University of California, Alex Katz, February 22 - April 14, 1971

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minnesota Museum of Art, Alex Katz, July 16 - October 3, 1971

Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Alex Katz, November 10 - December 31, 1971

New York, New York, Robert Miller Gallery, Alex Katz from the Early 60s, October 6 - October 31, 1987

In Portrait of Al Held (1963), Alex Katz (American, b. 1927) balances familiarity and objectivity through his signature painting style and direct composition in order to create a striking portrait of his long-time friend and fellow artist Al Held (American, 1928-2005).

The subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and international acclaim, Alex Katz applies a deliberately vibrant visual language between realism and abstraction, ambivalence and intimacy. Coming of age alongside the titans of New York’s Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s, Katz favored flatness of color and form rather than gestural primacy and raw emotion. His work is deceptively simple; his technique of painting wet on wet evokes a lustrous finish to his canvases, defying two-dimensionality even in their flatness. 

In terms of his thematic output, Katz is particular known for sharing his world, whether through hundreds of portraits of his wife of more than 60 years, Ada, his home in coastal Maine, or scenes and characters from downtown New York City among the cultural avant garde. This combination of immediacy and familiarity— flash-in-the-pan moments he captures in thick brushstrokes and meditatively stylized forms is clear in his depiction of Held.

Katz and Held met during in New York during the mid-century, when they were each in their 20s. For a time, both artists had studios in the same building, and saw each other’s work often. Katz has said of Held’s paintings then that “I think Al did some of the best artwork

on the planet at that time and I was very lucky to be near them.”[i] But, while Held focused primarily on abstraction, Katz continued to find the most meaning in figuration.

As Katz has said:

"Realist painting has to do with leaving out a lot of detail,” said Katz in an interview, “I think my painting can be a little shocking in all that it leaves out. But what happens is that the mind fills in what's missing. It's about being able to see something in a specific way. Painting is a way of making you see what I saw."[ii]

In this 1963 painting, Held, defined in surprisingly simplified forms in blues, browns, yellows, and whites. Without any tools of his trade, his blue-collared shirt, combed back hair, and direct eye contact, Katz illustrates Held not as a fellow artist but as an austere, stripped-back portrait of someone he knew well.

[i] Juan Manuel Bonet, “Alex Katz: A Great Figurative Voice,” Electra, Issue 17, 2022. https://electramagazine.fundacaoedp.pt/en/editions/issue-17/alex-katz-great-figurative-voice.

[ii] Aida Dunne, “I prefer Stan Getz to Sartre”, The Irish Times, March 3, 2007. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/i-prefer-stan-getz-to-sartre-1.1198117.

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