Alex Katz Yellow Flags 2020 Signed Edition of 100

Artist: Alex Katz
Title: Yellow Flags
Medium: Archival Pigment Ink on Innova Etching Cotton Rag 315 GSM Fine Art Paper
Year: 2020
Sheet Size: 33" x 22"
Frame Size: 38" x 27" x 1.5"
Edition: 49/150 + 25 AP, 6 HC, 1 BAT, 1 RTP
Publisher/Printer: Printed and published by Lococo Fine Art Publisher, St. Louis
Signature: Signed and numbered in graphite at lower left
Literature: Catalogue Raisonné Supplement 707
Documentation: Gallery Certificate of Authenticity

Alex Katz's "Yellow Flags", 2020, exemplifies the artist's late career return to floral and botanical subjects, applying the same reductive vocabulary developed across six decades of portraiture and landscape to a close cropped view of yellow iris blooms. The composition isolates the flowers against a flattened, unmodulated ground, emphasizing bold contour and simplified color over naturalistic detail. This economy of form, characteristic of Katz's mature style, transforms an intimate botanical subject into an image of graphic clarity and scale, echoing the billboard like presence found throughout his broader body of work.

Produced as an archival pigment print on Innova Etching Cotton Rag 315 gsm fine art paper, the work measures 33 by 22 inches. It was printed and published by Lococo Fine Art Publisher in St. Louis, as part of an edition of 150, with 25 artist's proofs, 6 hors commerce, 1 bon a tirer, and 1 right to print. The present example is numbered 49/150 and is signed and numbered in graphite at the lower left. The print is documented in the Catalogue Raisonné Supplement as No. 707 and is accompanied by a gallery Certificate of Authenticity.

"Yellow Flags" reflects Katz's continued exploration of nature as subject matter in his later work, applying the flattened planes and confident linear structure central to his practice to convey the immediacy and visual impact of a single, closely observed floral form.

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About Alex Katz

Alex Katz, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927, is an American painter whose six-decade career has established him as one of the foremost figurative artists of the postwar era. He studied at Cooper Union in the late 1940s and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, where his early practice of painting outdoors directly influenced his lifelong interest in landscape and color.

Katz began exhibiting in New York in the early 1950s, a period dominated by Abstract Expressionism. Rejecting gestural abstraction, he instead pursued a representational style rooted in portraiture and everyday subject matter, gradually developing the flattened forms, bold color, and oversized scale that would define his mature work by the 1960s. This approach, often noted for anticipating aspects of Pop Art, distinguished Katz within a shifting American art landscape.

Throughout the following decades, Katz produced an extensive series of portraits featuring artists, poets, and family members, with his wife Ada serving as a recurring subject across hundreds of works. Concurrently, he expanded his landscape practice, depicting the Maine environment surrounding his summer studio with the same graphic clarity applied to his figural work.

By the twenty-first century, Katz had achieved international recognition, with retrospectives at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2022. His paintings are housed in major public collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate. Katz's enduring influence on contemporary figurative painting reflects a career defined by stylistic consistency, technical precision, and sustained critical acclaim.