Alex Katz

"Anna Wintour" 2009

An american artist primary associated with the pop art movement, Alex Katz is a figural american artist with a recent installation at the National Portrait gallery. Described as "fresh and flat", Katz obsesses over surface details such as hats, sunglasses and hair. stylized, superficial, painting the high end bohemian whirl of society- I'm not convinced. His work was dull and conveyed nothing. A work in the National Portrait Gallery show, called One Flight Up (1968) consists of 31 portraits on aluminium, cut out and mounted together. The effect of looking at it is of stepping into a New York party. When Katz was painting it he felt, he says, “like a casting director” trying to work out who would fit into the scene. Influenced by Ukiyo-e japanese prints aiming to show the present world, he succeeds in portraying the latter half of the 20th century as baseless and frivolous with no substance. Maybe this is a nod to the social circle he was a part of. Commenting on a portrait of Anna Wintour created for the exhibit, he claims he had been friends with her a long time - 20 or so years - yet was only compelled to paint her after her rise to fame and fortune - this kind of disgusts me.

"One Flight Up" 1968