Alex Katz

Lilies Against Yellow House

About this artwork

Katz has placed colourful lilies against the institutional brickwork of his summer house in Lincolnsville. He has been painting flowers since the 1960s, often painted during Summer residencies in Maine. The cropped, flattened composition displays a debt to Japanese art. Katz is well known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and heightened colours are now seen as precursors to Pop Art. Small oil paintings such as this one are sketched from life and often intended to be scaled up into larger works, but their economic execution and visible brushstrokes reveal an intimate side to his practice. He says, "A sketch is very direct. It is working empirically, inside of an idea."

Updated before 2020

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  • artist:
    Alex Katz (born 1927) American
  • title:
    Lilies Against Yellow House
  • date created:
    1983
  • materials:
    Oil paint on hardboard
  • measurements:
    30.70 x 22.90 x 0.30 cm; Framed: 32.70 x 24.80 x 3.40 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Art Fund, 2008
  • accession number:
    AR00004
  • gallery:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
This artwork is part of Artist Rooms
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Alex Katz

Alex Katz