Study for Philip Pearlstein

Alex Katz

1978 · Oil on aluminum cutout · Modern and Contemporary Art

Katz is deeply invested in the social world of artists and poets, with all of their attendant rituals and codes. To his depiction of this world he brings a strong theatrical sensibility. Here we see Pearlstein, glass in hand, gesturing towards someone in the distance. His gaze and his arm, radically foreshortened so that it appears to break the plane of the support, address the surrounding gallery. The illusion places us in the middle of a party, with the museum for a setting and nearby visitors as the guests.

Artist

Alex Katz

Date

1978

Medium

Oil on aluminum cutout

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1979