Press Release: "Painting Energy" Opening at the Portland Museum of Art May 2025
For Immediate Release: November 7, 2024
A Storied Artist’s Vision Comes to Life
For over 70 years, Alex Katz has boldly pursued figurative painting, perfecting his disciplined approach to the painted surface across a storied career. This unique creative vision has also guided the selection of works collected by his foundation. The upcoming exhibition Painting Energy: The Alex Katz Foundation Collection at the Portland Museum of Art, on view May 23 to September 14, 2025, highlights gifts from the foundation to the museum over the past decade and honors Katz’s personal and professional commitment to Maine. “As he has shared with me many times,” says the Judy and Leonard Lauder Director Mark H. C. Bessire, “Alex’s belief that Maine deserves great art has inspired his investment in the artistic landscape of this great state.”
Born in New York, Katz became a member of the Slab City Road group of artists alongside Rudy Burckhardt, Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes, Yvonne Jacquette, Bernard Langlais, and others who found community together in Midcoast Maine. The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture first introduced Katz to the state. He spent two summers there, later writing, “It was at Skowhegan that I first got involved with the Maine light, which is richer and darker than the light in Impressionist paintings. Being able to see the Maine light helped me separate myself from European painting and find my own eyes. The opportunity to paint anywhere and not be bothered by anyone gave me freedom and confidence.” Katz’s artistic growth in Maine and elsewhere led to his global profile in the contemporary art world and his ability to give back to it, supporting new voices in the historical narrative and new colleagues in the field of practice. As President and CEO of the Terra Foundation for American Art Sharon Corwin writes in the exhibition publication, “What matters to Katz is how his artistic and financial success might enable him to make a profound difference in the world of art. Since launching the Alex Katz Foundation in 2004, he has given countless works of art to institutions around the globe. What we see on the walls of these museums is richer, more complex, and more diverse as a result of Katz’s singular philanthropic vision.”
In 2011, the Alex Katz Foundation began gifting works by modern and contemporary artists to the PMA to form a collection that now numbers over 150 works. The fruits of this burgeoning relationship include artists with strong ties to the state of Maine (Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes, Fairfield Porter), leading figures in American modernism (Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper), a strong core of work by rising artists today (Kamrooz Aram, Chase Hall), and major figures in the global contemporary art sphere (Philip Guston, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke). Painting Energy and its accompanying publication explore Katz’s specific vision of the trajectory of modern and contemporary painting, focusing in particular on the pivotal decade of the 1980s.
Lois Dodd (United States, born 1927), Neighbor's House in the Snow, 1979, oil on canvas, 52 x 50 inches. Gift of the Alex Katz Foundation, 2022.12.1. © Lois Dodd, Courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York. Image courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York
Chase Hall (United States, born 1993), Respite (Grapes), 2019–2022, acrylic, coffee, tea towels, and wood and iron drying rack on panel, 72 x 48 x 29 1/4 inches. Gift of the Alex Katz Foundation, 2023.37.17a-j. © Chase Hall. Image courtesy of Gladstone Gallery and David Kordansky Gallery. Photography by David Regen
Establishes the PMA as a center for the study and display of modern and contemporary art in collection galleries, study rooms, and special exhibitions.
With these important works, the PMA has been able to expand the narrative of modern and contemporary art into both local and global contemporary art circles. Paintings, drawings, prints, video, photography, and sculpture are presented in dialogue with the major artistic movements of our time, including abstraction, expressionism, and figuration, and offer a glimpse into an extraordinary artist’s visual encyclopedia. The lavishly illustrated 160-page exhibition catalogue will include an extended essay introducing the artistic vision for the collection and short reflections on selected works by artists, curators, and scholars, as well as an illustrated checklist of all the PMA gifts from the Alex Katz Foundation.
Contributors to the publication include
Tiffany Barber, scholar, curator, and critic
Mark Bessire, Judy and Leonard Lauder Director, Portland Museum of Art
Sharon Corwin, President and CEO, Terra Foundation for American Art
Marlene Dumas, artist
Randall Griffey, Head Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Joachim Homann, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings, Harvard Art Museums
Vincent Katz, poet, translator, and critic
Shalini Le Gall, Chief Curator, Susan Donnell and Harry W. Konkel Curator of European Art, Portland Museum of Art
Anjuli Lebowitz, Judy Glickman Lauder Curator of Photography, Portland Museum of Art
Monique Long, writer and independent curator
Jessica May, Executive Director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Ramey Mize, Associate Curator of American Art, Portland Museum of Art
Sayantan Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Portland Museum of Art
Anne Neely, artist
Tessa Greene O’Brien, artist and curator
Rob Storr, critic, curator, and artist
Leslie Ureña, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art
These gifts from the Alex Katz Foundation Collection establish the PMA as a center for the study and display of modern and contemporary art to be shared with visitors in collection galleries, study room visits, and special exhibitions. As Alex Katz writes in the Painting Energy publication, “There is no place, even in New York City, where one can currently see a representative selection of the exciting and important paintings that have been done from the 1980s to the present. By helping to create a collection of these works at the Portland Museum of Art, the Alex Katz Foundation hopes to contribute to rectifying this situation.” The museum shares his enthusiasm for this noble goal.
About the Portland Museum of Art
With an extensive collection and nationally renowned exhibitions, the Portland Museum of Art is the cultural heart of Portland, Maine. The PMA collection includes significant holdings of American, European, and contemporary art, as well as iconic works from Maine—highlighting the rich artistic tradition of the state and its artists. The museum brings it all to life with unparalleled programming. From special members events, Free School Tours, and family activities to PMA Films, curator talks, and tours of the Winslow Homer Studio—it’s all happening at the PMA.
In 2022, sparked by the current growth of the collection, record attendance, and community feedback, the museum launched The PMA Blueprint: Building a Landmark for the Future, a $100M campus expansion and unification project that will more than double the size of the PMA’s campus as well as the museum’s economic impact throughout the region. Designed by LEVER Architecture, a new mass timber, landmark building will be a pillar of sustainable design and a catalyst for climate-safe construction in Maine.