Vivien with Straw Hat

Limited edition #41/60

The large-format portrait Vivien with Straw Hat in color features Vivien Bittencourt. A woman Alex Katz has portrayed many times. She is his daughter-in-law. Vivien Bittencourt grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, where she received a degree in history from the University of São Paulo. In 1986, she moved to New York City to pursue her interest in filmmaking. She produced and directed documentaries about artists, including Rudy Burckhardt, Alex Katz, and Kiki Smith. She also captured several historical poetry readings on film, including a 1988 reading of Jack Kerouac’s “Mexico City Blues” with Eileen Myles, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bernstein, Nina Zivancevic, and Richard Hell, and a 1989 reading of Hanuman Books authors with Herbert Huncke, Taylor Mead, Elaine Equi, Cookie Mueller, Gregory Corso, and Rene Ricard. Vivien in Straw Hat is an exemplary work by Alex Katz – this print features Katz’s clean lines and minimal approach to portraiture, and the monochromatic orange background that is typical of his compositions. These portraits have no clear narrative – it is not important for the viewer to know the person or story behind the artwork. What Katz is trying to emphasize is actually the beauty of the subjects. The use of soft colors and emphasis on fashionable details in his paintings transform the coldness of sharp lines, lack of detail, and flatness into a work of art that the viewer can enjoy. Vivien in Straw Hat is a pigment print similar to screen printing. Alex Katz / Pioneer of Pop Art Alex Katz is particularly famous for his figurative paintings: The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was born in New York in 1927. A pioneer of Pop Art, he always focused on the essentials and early on explored simplified forms and high-contrast color composition. His art is diverse but always has beauty as its central theme. The artist can now look back on more than 200 solo exhibitions as well as around 500 group exhibitions; his diverse works are part of over 100 collections worldwide. Alex Katz lives and works in New York and Maine.