Alex Katz: Various Trees | Timothy Taylor
I had always mentally bucketed Alex Katz as a borderline-misogynist Pop Artist. He rose to fame in the 1960s and is still best known for his offputtingly static portraits of pneumatically-endowed women. But most recently, several exhibitions of his work at the Timothy Taylor gallery in London changed my mind. Lately, he’s become a landscape artist of great sensitivity and freedom. So when I saw the title of this latest exhibition - Various Trees - I had to visit.
Katz paints what’s around him: trees near his home studio in Maine, mainly. Some from Rome too. He paints what he calls “quick things passing”. There’s such freedom and fluidity in his brush strokes. In the small studies and full scale works on show, there are trees in summer, trees in winter: some clearly identifiable, some simplified into near abstraction.
Roman Tree 12 (2024)
His portrayal is of moments in time: light on branches and leaves, the vast sky, circumscribed by the earthly. A close crop of a wider universe. He’s 98 years old… 99 in July. He’s still painting.
Such moments in time must seem precious - and they should be precious to us all. I’m a little less than half Katz’s age and I feel so old sometimes. There’s something deeply inspiring, then, about these trees. Painted as they are with such freedom and panache.
Alex Katz: Various Trees is at Timothy Taylor (London). 05 March - 11 April 2026