Painting the town

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Sun-baked on the New England coast, clothed in cotton and sandals and off to a garden party at the Katz "Yellow House," where there are tall, cold drinks and seafood with family and friends waiting.

That’s the allure of "Alex Katz in Maine," the show at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts through Sept. 4. Put together by Suzette McAvoy, of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, and Lynn Marsden-Atlass of the Academy, this is the first show that looks at Katz’s work in the upper Northeast. Maybe it’s because the artist is a New York painter and his fans might do a double take when confronted with more than 40 works celebrating Maine and its simple pleasures.

Katz, who was born in 1927 in New York City, is best known for portraits of friends that are psychologically complex. It has been said he combines Abstract Expressionism with Pop Art.

In a sense, the relationship of man with the environment is central in all of his works. While representational, it’s not at all realistic and, being honest with the viewer, it is an undisguised vision. Almost a throwback – in terms of large shapes of saturated colors with a near, but not quite, pop art look to them – the artist’s work radiates sincerity, especially in the pictures of his wife, Ada (who is "a true American beauty," according to the artist).

During his studies at the Cooper Union in New York, Katz was invited to continue at the Yale University of Art’s summer school and the Skowhegan School of Painting in Maine. He chose Maine and, apparently, it was a turning point.

"At Skowhegan, I tried plain air painting and found my subject matters and a reason to devote my life to painting. The sensation of painting from the back of my head was a high that I followed until the present," Katz said.

He is a man of his word. Katz’s association with the Maine countryside and coast has been unwavering. The 79-year-old is said to swim daily in Coleman Pond near his home (nicknamed The Yellow House, in Lincolnville) and his subjects are the stuff of everyday life: the lobster pound, his house, friends and family, beach scenes and visitors arriving via the Isleboro ferry slip. Often he depicts the same people in different situations – namely, Ada and other friends.

As with most American painters, it is the light that appears to be important – that is, if there is a difference between light and color. Once light takes hold in Katz’s imagination, the rich shades explode off the canvas. He does small-scale works during the summer and, as if making up for the weak, urban winter light, the scenes become huge and the colors blinding.

"Considering his prominence as a painter and the role Maine has played in his artistic development, this exhibition is truly overdue. While the rural setting was drastically different for Katz, it was nonetheless visually rich and his development flourished there. Through a selection of works spanning the years 1958 to 2004, this exhibition serves as a focused retrospective as well as an illuminated look at over 50 years of his painterly pursuits in Maine," Marsden-Atlass said.

The exhibition is accompanied by a helpful catalogue, which provides some basis for the show’s focus. The art writer Sanford Schwartz said in an essay the theme causes "a viewer to take a double take and face some of the indirect and ambiguous strands of his art. Maine has been an elemental part of the painter’s life for half a century now, yet the role it plays in his work may be as much psychological, and hidden, as it is the clear-cut and visceral one we might expect."

If the paintings of Maine tend to pull Katz back into that environment, then the impact on the viewer is we are pulled back into every summer vacation since childhood. It’s like the taste of cold lemonade on a hot beach.

Alex Katz in Maine
Through Sept. 4
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
118-128 N. Broad St.
215-972-7600
www.pafa.org