Alex Katz, Yarrow, Linocut on Okawara Natural Paper, 2003, 24/25

Alex Katz reduces a wildflower to its essential gesture — Yarrow, 2003, a linocut of quiet authority from an edition of twenty-five.

ARTIST: Alex Katz (American, b. 1927)

PERIOD: 2003

CATEGORY: Works on Paper / Print

MATERIALS: Linocut on Okawara Natural Paper

DIMENSIONS: Image: 36¼ × 25⅜ in. (921 × 645 mm.) Sheet: 39½ × 28⅜ in. (1003 × 721 mm.)

EDITION: 24/25 plus 5 artist's proofs. Signed by the artist.

CONTEXT: While Katz established himself as one of the leading American painters of the 20th century, his woodcuts and linocuts are the perfect medium to explore his fascination with appearance, perception, and representation — bold, simple, and colorful, yet revealing a wide range of emotional ambivalence and psychological complexity. Yarrow — the common wildflower whose flat-topped clusters of tiny blooms Katz renders with characteristic economy — belongs to the body of flower and landscape linocuts that run parallel to his celebrated portraits, objects of sustained attention reduced to their most essential form. Printed on Okawara Natural Paper, the warm tone of the Japanese sheet gives the image a softness that offsets the precision of the cut line. From a very small edition of only 25, signed by the artist. Framed.