Alex Katz: Peter Blum/Pacewildenstein/Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.(Brief Article)

Does a painting by Alex Katz have an inner life? Silly question, you sys: Of course it does. Any painted image by a bona fide modern artist has an inner life, and Katz's credentials on that score are impeccable. The Brooklyn-born, seventy-four-year-old painter studied at places whose names are virtually synonymous with turpentine and canvas (Cooper Union, Skowhegan).

Even the move to the flat, cool manner that became his signature proved his modernist chops: In the late '50s, when Abstract Expressionism was the house style of serious, progressive American painting, Katz went bravely ...

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