(born Brooklyn, New York in 1927)
Ada with Hat, signed, dated Katz 14 (incised), oil on masonite, the numbers 04091404 and 1503 inscribed on the reverse, 30 x 40 cm, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
Acquired directly from the artist by the current owner.

Throughout the years of his artistic production, Alex Katz repeatedly portrayed his wife, Ada, and this is also the case with the present painting, ‘Ada with Hat’. She became his most frequent model.
The presence of the sitter is, on the one hand, very direct for the viewer, since the face displays a comparatively large size in relation to the format and moves immediately closer to the viewer, as it were. On the other hand, the internal drawing of the face, with a thin and flat application of colour, is executed very delicately and appears distant, distinguished and cool. In the representation of the background Katz refrains from depicting spatial depths, choosing a homogeneous, bright yellow colour surface instead, the colourful richness of which evokes the shimmering atmosphere at the end of a summer day.
This depiction is typical of Katz’ gestural, abstracting manner of painting, in which individual motifs are cut out, magnified and repeated as figurative icons.