Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 21st October 2019

42 33 Alex Katz (b.1927) American Ada (2001) signed top right and dated ‘01, artist’s archive no 682 verso oil on board 40.60 x 30.5cm (16 x 12in) Provenance: Pace Wildenstein Gallery, New York (label verso); Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin; Private Collection €40,000-60,000 (£35,398-53,097) Born in 1927 and growing up in New York City, Alex Katz studied art at the Cooper Union, and later at Skohegan School in Maine, at a time when abstract painting was in vogue. A dedicated painter, he is of the same generation as Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg, but unlike them he continues to explore the bounds of realism, and the relationship between paint as a medium and the human urge to depict reality. Although his themes-portraiture, still lives, landscape-are classical, his paintings are distinguished by a sense of immediacy and living in the present, rather than depicting objects and people for posterity. Movement, dance and literature are important in his work, and he has often painted portraits of poets and dancers. His wife Ada, a former research biologist, has been the subject for hundreds of Katz’s paintings. In this work he depicts her standing, against a blue background, wearing a long blue coat, black high-heel shoes and a scarf. Ada is set to the left of the composition, implying space beyond the confines of the frame; a few steps and she could step out of the picture. This gives the painting a sense of immediacy, as does her face, which is turned towards the viewer as if she has paused momentarily. The portrait however is characteristic of Katz in that there is almost no narrative quality; Ada is not located in any specific time or place. She exists, for the viewer, in the moment. Peter Murray, September 2019