{"data":{"id":"676","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":676,"topgoose_id":1754,"tms_id":676,"display_name":"Alex Katz","sort_name":"Katz Alex","display_date":"1927–","begin_date":"1927","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eFor more than sixty years Alex Katz\nhas remained dedicated to figurative art in\nhis paintings, sculptures, and works on\npaper, despite the influence—and, at times,\ndominance—of abstraction since the\npostwar era. In 1957 Katz met Ada Del Moro;\nthey married the following year, and she\nbecame one of the most frequent subjects\nof his paintings. Their relationship began\nduring a period of artistic transition for Katz\nfollowing several years of making small-\nscale collages. He has recalled how he came\nto abandon these works for what would\nbecome his signature painting style: “I said\nthat if I enlarged them to six feet then\nI could be very successful, but it was much\nmore interesting to try to paint a\ncontemporary portrait.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrior to beginning the large-scale work\n\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/407\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Red Smile\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, Katz made several preparatory\ndrawings as well as smaller versions of the\npainting. This drafting process and its\nresults recall the work of the Old Masters\nof Renaissance and Baroque art rather\nthan the spontaneous, abstract compositions\nof many of Katz’s peers. As Katz himself has\nexplained, he also shares with his fifteenth-\nand sixteenth-century artistic predecessors\na desire to “search for beauty” in the visible\nworld around him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvocative of a billboard advertisement\nor a film still, \u003cem\u003eThe Red Smile\u003c/em\u003e is a tightly\ncropped portrait of the head and shoulders\nof Ada, clad in a white shirt and blue\nheadscarf. Her broadly smiling profile fills\nhalf of the horizontally oriented composition.\nWith her distinctive fair skin and dark\nhair and eyebrows, she is as recognizable\nacross Katz’s many paintings of her as\nare his signature expanses of flat, crisply\ndelineated color.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500022493","wikidata_id":"Q919265","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:37:43.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-26T01:30:58.753-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/676/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/676/exhibitions"}}}}