Alex Katz

ALEX KATZ (Brooklyn, New York, 1927)
“Eleuthera,” 1999.
31-color silkscreen print on 300 g Rives Roll Stock paper, edition 53/75.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
The edition consists of 75 copies and 10 artist’s proofs.
Printed by Brand X Editions, Inc., New York.
Co-published by Brand X Projects, Inc., New York, and the artist.
Measurements: 121.9 x 67.9 cm (paper); 134 x 82 cm (frame).

In Eleuthera, Alex Katz translates into the language of silkscreen printing one of the settings most closely associated with his imagination: the Caribbean island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, where the artist found a source of inspiration to explore the luminosity of the tropical landscape, the tranquility of summer, and the casual elegance of everyday life. The work brings together the elements that define his mature body of work, based on the simplification of the figure, the use of flat colors, and a composition of great visual balance.

The scene features two swimmers silhouetted against a vivid turquoise-blue background, evoking the luminosity of the Caribbean setting. The flat colors of the swim caps—in shades of magenta and yellow—contrast with the swimsuits—one black and the other with a botanical print—creating a dialogue between figure, surface, and chromatic rhythm. The arrangement of the bodies—with crossed arms and stylized postures—reveals Katz’s ability to transform an everyday moment into a carefully structured composition, where the human figure is reduced to its essential elements without losing presence or expressiveness.

Graphic art occupies a distinct place within Alex Katz’s body of work. Although he is best known for his large-format paintings, his silkscreen prints, lithographs, and woodcuts constituted a fundamental field of experimentation, allowing him to delve deeper into the relationship between line, color, and visual perception. Through the application of uniform chromatic surfaces and defined contours, the artist creates images of great visual immediacy, reminiscent of advertising aesthetics and the language of Pop Art, yet endowed with a particular elegance and formal refinement.

Alex Katz is one of the most influential figures in American art of the second half of the 20th century and one of the leading innovators of contemporary figurative painting. Trained at the Cooper Union in New York and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, he developed his own distinctive style beginning in the 1950s, characterized by formal synthesis, large formats, and the use of expansive areas of flat color. His work emerged as an alternative to the gestural style of the dominant Abstract Expressionism, anticipating many of the visual techniques that Pop Art would later establish, although he always maintained an independent stance with respect to that movement. His portraits, landscapes, and scenes of contemporary leisure—often featuring his wife and muse, Ada Del Moro—are distinguished by their cinematic framing, economy of means, and an elegant refinement of the image. At the same time, he produced a notable body of graphic work in lithography, silkscreen, and woodcut, considered an essential part of his artistic exploration. His work is part of the permanent collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Modern in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.