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Dimensions: 72 by 96 in. 182.9 by 243.8 cm.
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Provenance:
Collection of the artist
Marlborough Gallery, New York
Leigh and Mary Block, Chicago (acquired from the above in January 1982)
Private Collection, California
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Exhibited:
San Francisco, Erika Meyerovich Gallery, Alex Katz Paintings, September - November 1986, cat. no. 5, n.p., illustrated in color
Rockland, The Farnsworth Museum, Alex Katz in Maine, July - October 2005, p. 49, illustrated in color
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Notes: Executed in 1980.
Alex Katz's realist paintings have long since been recognized for their significant contribution to painting in the latter part of the 20th Century. KatzÂ?s paintings are rendered at once with a simplicity yet grandeur during a time when realist paintings were consistently overshadowed by their abstractionist counterparts. The present painting, Rudy, a portrait of his good friend and neighbor in Maine, filmmaker and photographer Rudy Burkhardt, is rendered in the characteristically direct and well composed manner typically sought after in KatzÂ?s most desirable portraits. Rudy is rendered in a manner that makes him familiar to the viewer, although his impressive scale and the decisive color tones in which he painted separate Rudy from the human world and elevate him to one on commanding distinction.
