
Exhibition preview·Waterville
Review: Alex Katz's 'Out of Sight' reveals drawing as the engine of his painting
The Rail's September review of the Colby College Museum of Art survey (May 21 - October 11, 2026) traces drawing's central role across Katz's career, from 1949-50 Skowhegan landscapes to the recent 'Drawing for Lilies' series.
In its September 2026 issue, the Brooklyn Rail reviews 'Out of Sight' at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine (May 21 - October 11, 2026), an exhibition arguing that drawing has always been integral to Alex Katz's practice. Critic Tom McGlynn traces the throughline from Katz's 1949-50 Skowhegan landscapes in black ink, through watercolor series, cut-paper collages such as 'Orange Interior' (1956) and 'White Bathing Cap' (1955), to the working 'cartoons' pounced in pigment as guides for large canvases like 'The Cocktail Party' (1965), and on to recent marker drawings including the 'Drawing for Lilies' series (2025). Curated by Kiko Aebi, the show makes the case that Katz's apparently effortless style rests on a lifelong, deliberately anachronistic dialogue with art history from Piero della Francesca to Manet and Degas.


