B. FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS, 1929
D. NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 2009
Howard Kanovitz was a leader of Photo Realism: a documenter of style and fashion, depicting members of the art scene at openings, or superimposing known critics and curators onto images of board room meetings. In his particular style, he explored the intersections of painting, photography, fiction, and fact.
Kanovitz studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and The Art Studenst League in Woodstock where he worked with Yasuo Kyniyoshi before moving to New York an apprenticing with Franz Kline. As a member of New York’s downtown art scene, Kanovitz painted abstract paintings, which he exhibited at Tenth Street Galleries early in his career. Following his father’s death in 1963, Kanovitz went through family photos, an experience which prompted him to interrogate the relationship between images and perception. At this time, Kanovitz abandoned abstraction in favor of a figurative style and worked arduously in this new direction. These efforts culminated in a 1966 solo exhibition at the Jewish Museum, securing his place as a leader of Photo Realism among artists such as Larry Rivers, Alex Katz, and Chuck Close.
His photo based, representational paintings exhibited at the Jewish Museum show were the first to be called “photo-realist” and shocked many in the art community prompting a symposium which was held at the New York Studio School for “downtown artists” to weigh in on this perennial “hot topic”, newly addressed by one of their own.
Kanovitz first began using airbrush in 1967, giving his paintings a feeling of photographic perfection. Cut out figures created using this precisionist technique were placed in the viewers space, often in front of Kanovitz’s painted canvas depicting the luminaries of the art world of the time. This type of installation was the centerpiece in the first of several Waddell Gallery shows.
Kanovitz has been the subject of many solo museum shows internationally and his work is collected by institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Britain, London, and Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.
Howard Kanovitz
The Drinks, 1966
liquitex polymer acrylic on canvas
34h x 44w in
86.36h x 111.76w cm
Howard Kanovitz
Nude Greek, 1965
acrylic on linen
62h x 38w in
157.48h x 96.52w cm
HKA006
Howard Kanovitz
Black & White Dog, 1965-66
acrylic on canvas
65 1/4h x 51 1/4w in
165.74h x 130.18w cm
HKA058
Howard Kanovitz
Three Mile Harbor, 1990
acrylic on canvas board and wood construction
32 1/4h x 34 1/4w x 3 1/2d in
81.92h x 87w x 8.89d cm
HKA061
Howard Kanovitz
Untitled (Study for Women on Sofa), 1977
pastel and collage on paper
19 3/4h x 25 1/2w in
50.17h x 64.77w cm
Howard Kanovitz
The Bather, 1964
acrylic on canvas
36h x 30 1/8w in
91.44h x 76.52w cm
HKA063
Howard Kanovitz
#33 Wolf Johnson, 1969
polymer acrylic on homosote
53 3/4h x 16 3/4w in
136.53h x 42.55w cm
HKA030
Howard Kanovitz
'Pistol' Pete Maravich, 1969
laminated canvas on wood and acrylic
80 in height, including pedestal
HKA032
Howard Kanovitz
Mike Maloy, 1969
laminated canvas on wood and acrylic
80 in height, including pedestal
HKA033
Howard Kanovitz
Rick Mount, 1969
laminated canvas on wood and acrylic
80 in height, including pedestal
HKA034
Howard Kanovitz, a pioneer of the Photo Realism style of painting, which emerged in the 1960s as a reaction against abstraction in general and Abstract Expressionism in particular, died last Monday in Manhattan. He was 79 and lived in Southampton, N.Y.
Howard Kanovitz, like dozens of other paint-intoxicated younger artists, was just beginning to show the results of a long apprenticeship to the master of Action Painting. His generation was a casualty of sudden, messy rectiication of public taste to include Pop and “Systemic” art – and of its hysterical aftermath. Not all of the young Expressionists kept their personal balance through this cruel second obscurity; not all of them survived bitterness and self-doubt to start over and to rise again. Which helps explain the peculiar triumphantness of Kanovitz’s current exhibition at the Jewish Museum, his first show in four years, because he has done IT with such power, resourcefulness and charm.
