The Boston Globe

Arts & Living

Friday, July 25, 2003

Alex Katz's appealing protraits make an inviting retrospective

by Cate McQuaid

It's hard to believe that Alex Katz turns 77 this year. There's a touch of eternal youth to the great painter's work. Beth Urdang has mounted a show of Katz's paintings, prints, cut-outs, and collages dating back to the 1960's. The artist's bold, graphic style shines though the years. He's the rare contemporary artist whose work appeals to just about everybody, yet there's nothing of the lowest denominator about it.

Katz's portraits sport simple lines and flat tones. They're so pared down they become distillations not of specific people but of types. The simple style and the lush tones invite us in, yet the flatness of the portraits deny that there's any depth of space to enter. It's like an exclusive country club.

We know these folks. They represent beauty, priviledge, and reserve, but they also know how to have a good time. They might be the Kennedys. As such, they verge on Pop Art, yet Katz washes his hands of celebrities. He paints his own friends and family, particularly his wife, Ada. That some of his friends are celebrities, such as poet Kenneth Koch, is a bonus.

"Ada in Navy Coat," a 1988 painting, shows his slender wife's elegance edged with practicality. Her dark hair is streaked with gray, a yellow light limns her overcoat. "Sweatshirt II," a 1990 silkscreen self-portrait, shows the artist lean and angular, with warm skin tones against a beige ground. So few elements, yet wonderful details- like the T-shirt collar peaking over that of the sweatshirt - imbue Katz's work with a spare grace similar to Shaker furniture.

"Dog at End of Pier," a sweetly comical 1960 collage of a gray dog sitting on a dock, shows the mutt gazing over an expanse of foggy green. Despite the muted tones, the dog stands out on the page because he's not drawn but pasted there. Katz doesn't fancy him up with tonalities or shadows. He just pastes on darks whiskers and a stern brow, and the scene pops.

In the '90s, Katz turned to landscape and used the same clarity of depiction in the thick of the forest- a process that distills fir tress almost, but not quite, to abstraction. "Spruce," a 1994 aquatint, shows the lean gray trunk rising through a sea of green. Katz keeps to the strictures of his style, and that practice liberates him, and us, to see the world anew.