The art of COLLABORATION

A new exhibition showcases how painter Alex Katz translated his prolonged study of performance for the stage.

- JOHN O'HERN

A lex Katz first went to Maine in 1949 as a student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has summered in Maine since 1954 and became associated with Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and its museum of art which opened in 1959. In 1992, he donated more than 400 of his works to the museum and, in 1996, the Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Works of Alex Katz opened to the public. The vast galleries display Katz’s small and large works to their best advantage—often, a single painting will command a wall of two of the wing’s 70-by-36-foot galleries.

Katz described the striking and unusual lighting. “Rather than spotlighting my works, we wanted to achieve an evenly distributed light, which in the daytime is diffused through the skylight surface itself and at night by bouncing artificial light off the light wells." Colby's Alex Katz collection now numbers more than 900 works.

Today, the galleries contain the exhibition Alex Katz: Theater and Dance, continuing through February 19, 2023. The museum describes it as "the first comprehensive museum exhibition of his highly collaborative and playful work with choreographers, dancers, and members of avant-garde theater ensembles."

The museum's Katz Consulting Curator, Levi Prombaum, says, "Alex Katz's collaborations with different artists-spanning an extraordinary range of art forms and art worlds-are among the most fascinating, yet understudied, aspects of his career.