Ada 10

ALEX KATZ (B. 1927)

Ada 10

signed and numbered 'Alex Katz 11/100' (lower edge)

17-color silkscreen on Saunders Waterford, HP High White, 425 gsm paper

54 x 40 1/2 inches (137.2 x 102.9 cm)

framed: 58 1/2 x 45 inches (148.6 x 114.3 cm)

Executed in 2022. This work is number 11 from an edition of 100 plus 20 artist's proofs.

Printed by Brand X Editions Ltd, Long Island City. Published by Lococo Fine Art Publisher, St. Louis.

PROVENANCE:

Acquired directly from the publisher by the present owner

NOTES:

“I always try to paint in the present tense. If you paint stories, you're painting in the past tense.”

- Alex Katz

Alex Katz, born in Brooklyn in 1927, stands as a defining figure in postwar American art, known for his unmistakable blend of stylized realism and minimalist flair. Working against the grain of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, Katz developed a bold, flat aesthetic that came to anticipate and outlive the Pop Art movement. With a focus on clarity, light, and the immediacy of the present moment, his portraits strip away extraneous detail to heighten our awareness of the essential. Over a career spanning more than seven decades, Katz has achieved international acclaim and institutional recognition, with works held in over 100 public collections globally and major retrospectives, including a landmark 2022 exhibition at the Guggenheim, New York.

In Ada 10, Katz returns to one of his most enduring themes of the cinematic portrait. Rendered in his characteristic style of sharply defined planes and reduced forms, only half of the woman’s face fills the entire page. Katz’s pared-down approach transforms a fleeting moment into something iconographic, and elevates an everyday scene into an emblem of contemporary grace.