The Works of Pat Steir and Alex Katz at Surovek Gallery

Pat Steir

This has been a very good year for Pat Steir. She was commissioned to create an exhibit for the the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., which is set to open soon. A documentary of her life called, Pat Steir: Artist, which took four years to complete, has been released.

Pat Steir painting in her studio, on a lift instead of a ladder.

At 80, she no longer climbs a ladder to work on her enormous paintings. These days she uses a lift and has a crew to help her in her studio. She did have a fall, and now uses a cane to get around, but she didn’t fall off the ladder…she slipped in her kitchen.

Pat Steir
The Wave After Hokusai, 1986
Oil on canvas
90 x 90 inches
For sale at Surovek Gallery

Steir’s works have been setting records at auction. She was the first artist, since Matisse in the 1930s, to have been invited to make something site-specific for the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

Thirty paintings by Pat Steir will be on exhibit at the Hirshorn Museum when it reopens.

One of her trademark Waterfall paintings sold at auction in 2018 for $2.3 million. The first Waterfall painting she ever did is in the permanent collection of The Met.

Alex Katz

The 93-year-old artist, Alex Katz, is also having a banner year, with upcoming shows at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin in Paris, France, scheduled to open on February 19, 2021 and a retrospective at the Guggenheim planned for 2022.

Alex Katz in J. Crew Catalogue, 2009

Katz is back in New York, after a hiatus at his farmhouse and studio in Lincolnville, Maine, where he painted flowers and landscapes.

Alex Katz
Sunset, Lake Wesserumett ll, 1972
Screenprint in grays on paper
30 x 36 inches
Signed: Alex Katz in pencil (l.r.)
Numbered: 4160 in pencil (l.l.)
For sale at Surovek Gallery

Any Alex Katz retrospective will include paintings of, Ada, his wife of more than sixty years.

Alex Katz
Purple Hat (Ada), 2017
Archival pigment inks
46 x 21 inches
Edition: 83/125
Signed: Alex Katz 83/125 (l.l.)
Available at Surovek Gallery

His sculptures have been part of public exhibits around the world and have the same unique sensibility of sophistication as his paintings.

Alex Katz
Oona from Black Dress, 2017
Aluminum Sculpture, double sided
24.88 inches high
Edition: 10/35
Signed: Alex Katz
For sale at Surovek

“I feel power when I paint, more than I did when I was young.” Katz said in a recent interview in the Financial Times. “I can watch my body decline, but when I paint I feel power.”