Alex Katz at 99: 150 New Paintings, a $1,200 Maine House, and the Father Who Said 'Don't Paint Details'
At the age of 99, Alex Katz has produced an impressive 150 paintings over the past two years, marking his most prolific period to date from his studio located in a barn in Lincolnville, Maine. He acquired the property, originally a rum store, for $1,200 alongside fellow artists Lois Dodd and Jean Cohen. Katz resides in a twin bed, constructed kitchen cabinets years ago, and collaborated with Dodd on the potato-print wallpaper in the entryway. Since the 1960s, he and his wife, Ada, have maintained their loft in SoHo. His recent artworks, inspired by Monet's 1919 Water Lilies, focus on beach scenes. Katz wed Ada Del Moro in February 1958 and has created over 1,000 portraits of her. Raised in Queens, he attended Cooper Union and opted for Skowhegan over Yale, counting poets Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery among his friends.
Key facts
- Alex Katz, 99, says he made 150 paintings in the past two years, his largest production ever
- Katz bought his Lincolnville, Maine house for $1,200 with Lois Dodd and Jean Cohen
- The building was originally a rum store two miles away, moved to the site and left with a leaking foundation for about 20 years
- Katz met Ada Del Moro in fall 1957 and married her in February, three months later
- He has painted more than 1,000 portraits of Ada, a former research biologist at Sloan Kettering
- Katz cites the Metropolitan Museum's 1919 Monet Water Lilies as inspiration for recent work
- His father told him to paint his backyard and not to paint details before dying in a car accident when Katz was 16
- Katz chose Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture over Yale's summer program and Gavin Brown's gallery over Larry Gagosian's
Entities
Artists
- Alex Katz
- Ada Katz
- Ada Del Moro
- Vincent Katz
- Vivien Katz
- Isaac Katz
- Oliver Katz
- Lois Dodd
- Jean Cohen
- Philip Guston
- Josef Albers
- Robert Rauschenberg
- Jasper Johns
- Frank O'Hara
- John Ashbery
- James Schuyler
- Edwin Denby
- Paul Taylor
- Irving Sandler
- Willem de Kooning
- Claude Monet
- Sima Katz
- Ella Marion
- Brian Eno
- Count Basie
- Ella Fitzgerald
- John Coltrane
- Gavin Brown
- Larry Gagosian
Institutions
- Whitney Museum
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
- Yale University
- Cooper Union
- Woodrow Wilson Vocational High School
- Sloan Kettering
- Paul Taylor Dance Company
- Artists Rights Society
- Vogue
Locations
- Lincolnville
- Maine
- United States
- Camden
- Coleman Pond
- New York
- SoHo
- Queens
- St. Albans
- Manhattan
- Lower East Side
- Venice
- Italy
- Russia