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Alex Katz and poet Frank O’Hara, to whom this print is dedicated, were part of a vibrant crowd of New York artists in the 1960s. O’Hara, who died tragically in 1966 at the age of forty, enjoyed close friendships with artists and often used their art as the inspiration for his vivid, lyrical writing. In a 1966 essay in the journal Art and Literature, he called Katz “one of the most interesting painters in America.” He noted further “Katz’s breakthrough in 1959 was toward enlargement of the image [and] a move away from personal characteristics in the handling of paint.” [2]
Both of those characteristics are evident in his 1972 lithograph depicting the young avant-garde dancer and choreographer William Dunas. The viewer sees Dunas only from above the shoulders; his head and the collar of his jacket fill the entire surface of the print. Dunas’s hair, cut in a shaggy bohemian bob, is a bright golden blond. His cool green eyes, which gaze slightly to the side and just over the viewer’s shoulder, are complemented by a t-shirt executed in saturated jade-green ink. The figure is still, calm, and contemplative, his sensitive mouth captured in a position of repose. Katz eschews all background details and attributes in order to focus the viewer’s attention fully on the sitter’s stylized appearance.
William Dunas had a long association with both the artist and his son, Vincent. In 1981, Dunas performed a program of dance set to a score by Vincent Katz. At the time of Dunas’s death, the dancer was working on a book about the dance critic Edwin Denby, one of Alex Katz’s closest friends. [3]
Dunas was known as an innovative and visionary dancer and choreographer. The dance critic for the Village Voice called him “the most single-minded” of dance makers of his era, adding “[His] loneliness was so immense that he could be either the last man on earth or the first man in space. The New York Times critic called him fascinating, writing that “he does practically nothing, and that leaves more for us to see.” [4] The description implies a stripped-down dance style that is mirrored in Katz’s clean, spare image.
Katz first made this image of young Dunas for a “cutout,” one of his freestanding figures painted on aluminum, then cut out and mounted on a stand. The artist notes that he produced the nine-color lithograph with Bank Street Atelier during a period when his printmaking technique was becoming more complex: “Homage to Frank O’Hara: William Dunas—all the layering produces really delicate overtones.” He calls this print the most “complicated and successful print I did with Bank Street.” [5]
Katz intended this image of Dunas to be a tribute to his friend Frank O’Hara, symbolically passing the creative torch to a younger generation of New York artists. He says, however, “I decided not to do an image of Frank O’Hara because for the most part I try to work with the living and I didn’t feel like resurrecting him.” Still, in a second version of the print, he does bring back his friend in a sense by using a quotation by the poet as an epigraph for the image: “I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.” [6]
Notes:
[1] Barry Walker, Alex Katz: A Print Retrospective (New York: The Brooklyn Museum, in association with Burton Skira, Inc., 1987), 14.
[2] Frank O’Hara, “Alex Katz,” Art and Literature 9 (Summer 1966), 91 and 92.
[3] “William Dunas Dance Program,” The New York Times, January 12, 1981, C17, and Wendy Perron, “Remembering William Dunas,” Dance Magazine, April 2010, http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/January-2009/Remembering-William-Dunas.
[4] Deborah Jowitt, “Bill Dunas Has Always Danced Alone,” The Village Voice, quoted in Perron, “Remembering William Dunas,” and Marcia B. Siegel, “Almost As If He’s Not There At All,” The New York Times, August 19, 1973, 122.
[5] Nicholas P. Maravell, Alex Katz: The Complete Prints (New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, Ltd., 1983), 17 and plate 42, [95].
[6] Maravell, Alex Katz, plate 43, [95].
ProvenanceTo 1983
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY and Winston-Salem, NC. [1]
From 1983
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse on December 29, 1983. [2]
Notes:
[1] Deed of Gift, object file.
[2] See note 1.
Exhibition History1976
Twentieth Century American Print Collection opening
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/1976)
2006
Self/Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (8/30/2006-12/30/2006)
2010
Looking At/Looking In: Bodies and Faces in Contemporary Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/11/2010-10/8/2010)
Published ReferencesReynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 188, 189
DepartmentAmerican Art
Homage to Frank O'Hara: William Dunas
Artist
Alex Katz
(born 1927)
Date1972
Mediumlithograph in nine colors
DimensionsFrame: 40 1/8 x 32 1/8 in. (101.9 x 81.6 cm)
Image: 33 1/4 x 25 3/8 in. (84.5 x 64.5 cm)
SignedAlex Katz
Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse
Copyright© 2021 Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA at Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY
Object number1983.2.18
DescriptionPainter and printmaker Alex Katz is known for his closely observed, large-scale portraits, in which the details are smoothed out in favor of a stylized, highly finished surface. The artist began making prints in 1965, having taken note of the success that fellow artists Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol enjoyed with the medium. [1] The flatness of the print medium shared an affinity with Katz’s clean, hard-edged style.Alex Katz and poet Frank O’Hara, to whom this print is dedicated, were part of a vibrant crowd of New York artists in the 1960s. O’Hara, who died tragically in 1966 at the age of forty, enjoyed close friendships with artists and often used their art as the inspiration for his vivid, lyrical writing. In a 1966 essay in the journal Art and Literature, he called Katz “one of the most interesting painters in America.” He noted further “Katz’s breakthrough in 1959 was toward enlargement of the image [and] a move away from personal characteristics in the handling of paint.” [2]
Both of those characteristics are evident in his 1972 lithograph depicting the young avant-garde dancer and choreographer William Dunas. The viewer sees Dunas only from above the shoulders; his head and the collar of his jacket fill the entire surface of the print. Dunas’s hair, cut in a shaggy bohemian bob, is a bright golden blond. His cool green eyes, which gaze slightly to the side and just over the viewer’s shoulder, are complemented by a t-shirt executed in saturated jade-green ink. The figure is still, calm, and contemplative, his sensitive mouth captured in a position of repose. Katz eschews all background details and attributes in order to focus the viewer’s attention fully on the sitter’s stylized appearance.
William Dunas had a long association with both the artist and his son, Vincent. In 1981, Dunas performed a program of dance set to a score by Vincent Katz. At the time of Dunas’s death, the dancer was working on a book about the dance critic Edwin Denby, one of Alex Katz’s closest friends. [3]
Dunas was known as an innovative and visionary dancer and choreographer. The dance critic for the Village Voice called him “the most single-minded” of dance makers of his era, adding “[His] loneliness was so immense that he could be either the last man on earth or the first man in space. The New York Times critic called him fascinating, writing that “he does practically nothing, and that leaves more for us to see.” [4] The description implies a stripped-down dance style that is mirrored in Katz’s clean, spare image.
Katz first made this image of young Dunas for a “cutout,” one of his freestanding figures painted on aluminum, then cut out and mounted on a stand. The artist notes that he produced the nine-color lithograph with Bank Street Atelier during a period when his printmaking technique was becoming more complex: “Homage to Frank O’Hara: William Dunas—all the layering produces really delicate overtones.” He calls this print the most “complicated and successful print I did with Bank Street.” [5]
Katz intended this image of Dunas to be a tribute to his friend Frank O’Hara, symbolically passing the creative torch to a younger generation of New York artists. He says, however, “I decided not to do an image of Frank O’Hara because for the most part I try to work with the living and I didn’t feel like resurrecting him.” Still, in a second version of the print, he does bring back his friend in a sense by using a quotation by the poet as an epigraph for the image: “I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.” [6]
Notes:
[1] Barry Walker, Alex Katz: A Print Retrospective (New York: The Brooklyn Museum, in association with Burton Skira, Inc., 1987), 14.
[2] Frank O’Hara, “Alex Katz,” Art and Literature 9 (Summer 1966), 91 and 92.
[3] “William Dunas Dance Program,” The New York Times, January 12, 1981, C17, and Wendy Perron, “Remembering William Dunas,” Dance Magazine, April 2010, http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/January-2009/Remembering-William-Dunas.
[4] Deborah Jowitt, “Bill Dunas Has Always Danced Alone,” The Village Voice, quoted in Perron, “Remembering William Dunas,” and Marcia B. Siegel, “Almost As If He’s Not There At All,” The New York Times, August 19, 1973, 122.
[5] Nicholas P. Maravell, Alex Katz: The Complete Prints (New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, Ltd., 1983), 17 and plate 42, [95].
[6] Maravell, Alex Katz, plate 43, [95].
ProvenanceTo 1983
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY and Winston-Salem, NC. [1]
From 1983
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse on December 29, 1983. [2]
Notes:
[1] Deed of Gift, object file.
[2] See note 1.
Exhibition History1976
Twentieth Century American Print Collection opening
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/1976)
2006
Self/Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (8/30/2006-12/30/2006)
2010
Looking At/Looking In: Bodies and Faces in Contemporary Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/11/2010-10/8/2010)
Published ReferencesReynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 188, 189
Status
Not on view