Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s

Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s is the largest museum exhibition to showcase Alex Katz’s (b. 1927) innovative portraits, landscapes and still lifes from this pioneering period. Organized by the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, in close collaboration with Katz, this presentation explores the first decade of the artist’s career, a period characterized by fierce experimentation from which his signature brightly colored figurative paintings emerged. The exhibition’s title derives from Katz’s early manifesto announcing his intentions to invigorate traditional artistic subject matter. Creating work at a time when abstract painting dominated the art scene, Katz forged an ingenious way to wed abstraction with recognizable imagery by paring down his compositions to their most fundamental elements. In retrospect, these works prefigured the subsequent development of Pop Art. The exhibition includes more than 60 key loans from public and private collections, including many rarely seen works from the artist’s own holdings as well as a sampling of Katz’s works from the Colby College Museum of Art collection.

Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s is organized by the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, and funded in part by grants from the Wyeth Foundation of American Art and the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Generous support for this venue at the Neuberger Museum of Art is provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art and by the Purchase College Foundation.

The Neuberger Museum of Art opened on the campus of Purchase College, SUNY, in 1974 with a core collection donated by one of the greatest private collectors, philanthropists, and arts advocates of the twentieth century, Roy R. Neuberger. Today, the Neuberger is more active and vibrant than ever. Critically acclaimed exhibitions and a wealth of educations tours, lectures, and interactive programs engage the many parts of our broad community. The Neuberger is a center of teaching and learning for all ages.