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

For the first time in the New York metro area, Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s, the largest museum exhibition to showcase the artist’s work from his pioneering period in 1950s, is on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York. The exhibition, organized by the Colby College Museum of Art in close collaboration with the ninety-one year old artist, is currently on national tour. Featured are more than 60 works from public and private collections, including many rarely seen works from the artist’s own holdings. This exhibition brings into focus Katz’s  little-known, formative work from which his signature style of brightly colored figurative paintings emerged. 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; his works prefigured the subsequent development of Pop Art.