The serial and the sartorial: permutations of a motif in new portraits by Alex Katz

Published for the artist’s 2021 show at Gray Chicago, Alex Katz: The White Coat debuts the latest series from Alex Katz (born 1927), titled Vivien in White Coat: 11 large-scale portraits depicting Vivien Bittencourt, the painter’s daughter-in-law, wearing a radiant white coat.

Using a palette dominated by white, black and pale blue, Katz radically crops and magnifies the figure from an array of dynamic perspectives within the picture plane. Balancing the specific and the abstract, the intimate and the remote, the geometric and the gestural, Katz positions the figure in space with deftness, brevity and sartorial elegance. Notwithstanding Katz’s seriality, the white coat appears mysterious and enigmatic within each composition.

Alex Katz: The White Coat features an essay by renowned curator and writer Jan Verwoert, 42 color illustrations and an artist’s biography.

Text by: Jan Verwoert