Alex Katz Black Dress and White Flowers at Vertu

We are pleased to announce our acquisition of works from Alex Katz’s Black Dress series. These large silkscreens, each 80 X 30 inches, reflect Katz’s powerful sense of style and color.

Based on paintings that he did on door panels, each print depicts one of his muses, casually posed in a black dress. Katz minimalist approach to subject is deceptively simple. Each of his Black Dress silkscreens is printed in 25 to 35 colors.

I think style is the content of my painting.”
—Alex Katz

In an interview in the Tate’s Style Matters blog, Katz was asked about the style of his work. “I think style is the content of my painting,” he said, “and style belongs to fashion. Fashion is in the immediate present, and that’s really what I am after in my work. I’ve always thought that music reaches the present, but painting doesn’t, and that’s what I wanted to do. I don’t think it can ever do it, but the wish is there.”

For Alex Katz fans, this Black Dress series is reminiscent of the 1960 The Black Dress painting of his wife, Ada. The Black Dress painting, done in 1960, depicts Ada, in a black dress, painted in six different poses: sitting, standing, arms crossed, hand on hips, in what appears to be a gallery. In the recent Black Dress series, Done 56 years later, the lines are sharper, the colors brighter. Although Ada has been his constant muse for the past six decades, for this series, Katz used models, like Ulla, who have appeared in some of his other works.

Katz also uses his minimal style to create landscapes and floral designs, like White Roses and White Impatiens, which are also available in our gallery. Each of these prints is large scale and reflects the clarity of Katz’s work. Alex Katz still paints every day and, at age 88, is at the top of his game, still interested in fashion and style and getting better every day.

Please contact us for more information about these, or other works by Alex Katz available at Vertu Fine Art.