Essays by Vittoria Coen and Lisa Liebmann.

In over 40 years of activity, Alex Katz has established himself as one of the leading American painters of the 20th century. His work in three main genres, landscape, individual portraits, and group portraits, explore unique relationships between appearance, perception, and representation. With their smooth texture and compositional assuredness, Katz's works have found a place in the permanent collections of major museums throughout the world. This substantial monologue, published on the occasion of a gallery exhibition in Spain, contains over 240 color reproductions, and includes essays by Vittoria Coen, director of the gallery, and critic Lisa Liebmann, as well a bio-bibliography, offering an overview of this artist's influential career.

"My theory is that if you get the surfaces right, you get everything else right. I want style, the manner of painting, to be the dominant function. Style is part of the thing of elegance, the look that New York painting has. You find its epitome in Jackson Pollock. Big, not small or fussy. Pizazz. Count Basie seems like New York style, you know?" Alex Katz