Alex Katz

Philip Pearlstein

1965 · Oil on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

Philip Pearlstein’s portrait of Alex Katz is the first gift from Katz to enter The Met’s collection. Both Katz and Pearlstein remained committed to figurative painting during the 1950s and 1960s, decades otherwise dominated by abstraction. Despite this affinity, however, their approaches to representing the figure are quite different. Pearlstein’s painting of Katz exemplifies a degree of realism absent in Katz’s portrait of Pearlstein (MMA 1979.213.1).

Artist

Philip Pearlstein

Date

1965

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of Alex Katz, 1978