Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist renowned for his large-scale, simplified paintings of portraits, landscapes, and figures, known for their bold colors, flat forms, and emotional detachment. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish émigré family, Katz grew up in St. Albans, Queens. He studied at The Cooper Union in New York (1946–1949) and later at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (1949–1950), where he developed a foundational practice of painting from life—key to his artistic development.

Katz’s career spans over seven decades, with more than 250 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions internationally since 1951. He is known for his iconic portraits of his wife Ada Katz, who has been the subject of over 250 works, as well as depictions of family, friends, New York socialites, and cultural figures like John Ashbery and Paul Taylor. His style—characterized by dramatic cropping, minimal detail, and flat planes of color—prefigured Pop Art and stands as a distinctive form of East Coast Figurative Painting.

He has worked extensively in printmaking, producing over 400 editions in lithography, etching, silkscreen, and woodcut, with complete collections held by institutions such as the Albertina in Vienna and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His painted aluminum cutouts, freestanding or wall-mounted, are a major contribution to sculptural painting, often depicting close-ups of faces or figures in dialogue.

Katz has also engaged in significant public art projects, including a 1977 billboard in Times Square, a mural in New York’s Foley Square federal building, and large-scale works for the New York City Subway. His work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2022 and MoMA’s Alex Katz: Seasons exhibition in 2024.

He lives and works in New York City and Lincolnville, Maine, where he has maintained a summer residence since 1954 and developed a deep connection with Colby College, which houses a dedicated wing for his work. His influence extends to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Peyton and Julian Opie, and his art remains a defining voice in modern American figurative art.