Alex Katz

Bill 2, 2019
7540 Fay Avenue

13' 9" x 47' 3"
Larry & Tammy Hershfield, Hal & Debby Jacobs – Wall Sponsors

Alex Katz’s mural, Bill 2, celebrates Bill T. Jones, one of the most noted and recognized modern-dance choreographers of our time. Executed in Katz’s bold and simplified signature style, Bill 2 depicts Jones’ visage, through a series of distinct expressions. The repetition of his face has a cinematic and lyrical quality, reinforcing his place in the world of dance, music and film. Portions of the face are dramatically cropped, giving the viewer only quick and gestural glimpses of Jones. Bill 2, is a striking homage to two artists, Katz and Jones, both renowned in their respective fields of visual and performing arts. The mural’s proximity to the new Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center gives a nod to the interconnected worlds of art, music, and dance.

Alex Katz is an American figurative artist best known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints. Katz was born in 1927 in Brooklyn and raised in St. Albans, Queens. He studied art at The Cooper Union, New York, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In the early 1960s, influenced by films, television, and billboard advertising, Katz began making large-scale paintings with cropped faces. Working almost equally in portraiture and landscape, his recognizable style incorporates bright colors and boldly simplified compositions. While most well known for depicting his wife, Ada, many of his other subjects are fellow artists, poets, art critics, and dancers.

Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions internationally since 1951. His work can be found in over 100 public collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; The Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Albertina Graphische Sammelung, Austria; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; The Tate Gallery, London, England and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan. Katz lives and works in New York, New York.

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann