S
imultaneously hyper-specific and remarkably universal, The Red Band is a stunning portrait of Alex Katz’s most important subject: his muse and wife, Ada. Against an electrifying ground of saturated yellow pigment, Ada’s opposing profiles are a study in dualities; reflections rather than duplications of one another, the small variances between are made stark only by their crisp simplicity. Within a series of portraits of Ada that numbers in the hundreds, The Red Band stands out as a particularly powerful embodiment of the artist’s most iconic subject: while Katz’s cropped composition and monumental canvas bring Ada intimately close to the viewer, her expression is utterly enigmatic, leaving her as irresistible and aloof as a beguiling siren of the silver screen. Ultimately, the sole revelation of inner self comes, not from Ada’s expression, but in the highly personalized rendering of the objects surrounding her: it is only in the sleek cut of the ivory blouse, jaunty slant of her hat, and pert bow of the titular scarlet scarf that Katz offers the viewer a tantalizing glimpse of the nature of his sitter. A resounding test.mes
nt to the import of The Red Band, the present work was illustrated on the cover of the seminal 1979 monograph on the artist by Irving Sandler. Describings
the alluring yet elusive appeal of Ada, scholar Robert Storr describes:
“The sovereignty of Ada, as the-contemporary-American-woman-as-archetype increases with age, yet what is actually on her mind is never divulged. And in that indeterminate zone, anything is imaginable.”
The Red Band is exemplary of Katz’s extraordinary and highly individualized mode of realism, which has, over the past half century, redefined the shared visual vocabulary of Contemporary portraiture. Rather than seek to project a narrative, the irreverent simplicity and nonchalant elegance of Ada in Red Band conjures a sense of nostalgia, capturing an aura of introspection and intimacy that is as elusive as it is irresistible. About Katz's idiosyncratic style, Donald Kuspit writes: "Katz’s portraits are true to the way we experience others. They eloquently convey the tension between the determinate outer appearance and the indeterminate inner reality of someone known only from the outside… For all their everydayness, Katz’s figures have an air of transient strangeness to them, suggesting the mystery of their inner existence, perhaps even to themselves” (Donald Kuspit, Alex Katz Night Paintings, New York 1991, p. 8) Nowhere is Katz’s talent for enigmatic portraiture more apparent than in the more than two hundred portraits he has painted of Ada since their marriage in 1958. In painting after painting, Ada’s visage greets the viewer from a myriad of inviting settings, such as the gleaming white picnic table of The Red Band; yet despite her familiarity to the viewer, Ada is, as the present work, ultimately elusive.
Although one Ada faces us from the surface of The Red Band, her gaze is cast over the viewer’s shoulder, caught by something more intriguing beyond our range of vision. Opposite her, the other Ada turns her gaze away, seemingly unaffected by our presence. Describings Ada’s unique balance between accessibility and aloof remove – in terms highly reminiscent of the tableside setting of the present work—one scholar describes: “Such is [Ada’s] deep reserve that you can spend a very pleasant hour tête-à-tête with her and still wonder if you have ever really met.” (Leslie Camhi, ‘Painted Lady’, The New York t.mes s, 27 August 2006, online)As suggested by the painting’s title, Ada’s accoutrements are as much the subject of the painting as her familiar profile: rendered with exacting detail, the flowing ivory silk blouse, textured white hat, and titular scarlet scarf lend a highly personalized air to her elegant image.
Executed in 1978, The Red Band dates from a pivotal period in which Katz vastly increased the scale and ambition of his portraiture to create works of unprecedented visual impact. Born in Brooklyn in 1927 and educated at The Cooper Union and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Katz settled on figuration as the primary focus of his artistic output from the beginning of his career. Emerging in the New York art scene of the 1950s, which was dominated by the titans of Abstract Expressionism, Katz brazenly forged his own path, eschewing the passion and primacy of gesture inherent to abstraction to craft flat, polished scenes, awash in fields of color that captured the sensation of lived experience. Exemplified in the monumental and invitingly impersonal aura of The Red Band, however, Katz’s brand of realism simultaneously reflects his training in commercial art. By increasing the scale of his works, reducing perspective, eliminating extraneous detail and sharpening contours, he has created a definitive and idiosyncratic method of painting. The artist remarked, "People say painting is real and abstract. Everything in paint that’s representation is false because it’s not representational, it’s paint. We speak different languages and have different syntax. The way I paint, realistic is out of abstract painting as opposed to abstract style. So I use a line, a form and a color. So my contention is that my paintings are as realistic as Rembrandt’s…it was realistic painting in its t.mes . It’s no longer a realistic painting. Realism’s a variable. For an artist, this is the highest thing an artist can do – to make something that’s real for his t.mes , where he lives. But people don’t see it as realistic, they see it as abstract. But for me it’s realistic.” (Alex Katz in conversation with David Sylvester, March 1997, online) Executed on a grand scale, The Red Band is a compelling test.mes nt to immediate allure of Katz’s style – and, indeed, to the allure of his most iconic sitter.
