Art School

This oil study, based on a photograph, depicts Katz (at right) among friends at the Skowhegan Art School in Maine, where he spent the 1949-50 academic year and later returned to teach summer sessions in 1963 and 1965. Representative of Katz's early period of expressive abstract figuration, "Art School," reveals both his working methods and influences - namely, Milton Avery - as it suggests the contemporary work of Richard Diebenkorn; both artists are represented in the museum's collection. The study is an important complement to Katz's "Night" (1976).