Continuing the Art of Play
November 5 + 12, 2025

Painting Energy: The Alex Katz Foundation Collection at the Portland Museum of Art

Join Zoom Meeting / Class
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87618016665

For over 70 years, Alex Katz has boldly pursued figurative painting, perfecting his disciplined approach across a storied career. This unique creative vision has also guided the selection of works collected by his foundation. The Alex Katz Foundation Collection includes artists with strong ties to the state (Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes, Fairfield Porter), leading figures in American modernism (Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper), today’s rising artists (Kamrooz Aram, Chase Hall), and major figures in the global art sphere (Marlene Dumas, Philip Guston, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke). These gifts establish the PMA as a center for the study and display of modern and contemporary art to be shared with visitors in collection galleries, study room visits, and special exhibitions.  

Exhibition Website

This will be a 2-week project.

Warm-up + Project

Painting Energy: The Alex Katz Foundation Collection at the Portland Museum of Art
Katz showcased over 40 artists from his collection in a group show in Portland Maine this year. His focus was on emerging and established artists that he collected and admired for their specific artistic quality. He refers to it as energy or pow.

What artist speaks to you with energy or pow? Choose an artist this week and explore the work and ideas of that artist. How does that resonates with your own ideas and your own work?

Questions to consider: 

1. What images do you connect with?

2. Is there an energy or pow factor that you connect with while viewing a particular artist’s work? 

3. Does this style relate to your own work or is it a style or idea you wish to explore further? 

4. Look at your own work. What is your energy?

Please choose an artist from the exhibition before class that inspires you and that you’d like to explore in your own work.

Please see list below.

Painting Energy: Exhibition Page

CBS Sunday Morning

Impulse Magazine

Click each artist for more information.

Artists featured in the exhibition*

• Kamrooz Aram

• Georg Baselitz

• Katherine Bernhardt

• Katherine Bradford

• Charles Burchfield

• Rudy Burckhardt

• Stuart Davis

• Federico de Francesco

• Martha Diamond

• Lois Dodd

• Arthur Dove

• Rackstraw Downes

• Marlene Dumas

• Jane Freilicher

• Philip Guston

• Chase Hall

• Marsden Hartley

• Edward Hopper

• Yvonne Jacquette

• Chantal Joffe

• Anselm Kiefer

• Chris Martin

• Tommy Malekoff

• Thaddeus G. Mosley

• Anne Neely

• Sojourner Truth Parsons

• Sigmar Polke

• Fairfield Porter

• Marcus Leslie Singleton

• Charline von Heyl

  *This is was Ai generated and may not be a complete list

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