The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Horizontally oriented oil painting depicting a woman with with light skin tone sitting in profile, looking ahead from the passenger seat of a red car. Her brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail with a purple tie, and she wears a blue and white horizontally striped shirt under a blue sweatshirt. Out the window extend jagged peach pink and green hills under a blue sky with white clouds striated with grey.

Impala

1968

Alex Katz

(American, b. 1927)
America
oil on canvas
Framed: 187 x 278 x 4 cm (73 5/8 x 109 7/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 182.9 x 276.9 cm (72 x 109 in.)
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund and Gift of the Eppler Family Foundation and Agnes Gund 1983.68
© Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Katz made five quick oil sketches prior to composing Impala; because of his preparations the final image was completed in just one session.

Description

Impala is one of at least 80 portraits Alex Katz painted of his wife, Ada. Here, he presents her as a passenger in the vivid red interior of a 1960s Chevy Impala on a drive through the American Southwest. A mountainous view of Utah is visible through the car window. Combining realism and abstraction, Katz borrows the large scale and bold forms of Abstract Expressionism to invigorate his straightforward approach to figurative painting.
  • Mrs. Herbert Fischbach, New York
    (Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York)
  • Gilbert, Rita, and William McCarter. Living with Art. New York: Knopf, 1988. Reproduced p. 21
    Katz, Alex, David Sylvester, and Merlin James. Alex Katz: Twenty Five Years of Painting from the Saatchi Collection. London: Saatchi Gallery, 1997. Reproduced and mentioned p. 173
    Marshall, Richard, Alex Katz, and Robert Rosenblum. Alex Katz. New York: Rizzoli, 1986. Reproduced p. 91, fig 60
    Sandler, Irving. Alex Katz. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1979. Reproduced p. 40, fig. 28; mentioned p. 38
    Katz, Alex, Irving Sandler, and Bill Berkson. Alex Katz. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971. . Reproduced p. 91
    Turner, Evan H. "Year in Review for 1983," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 2 (1984): 38-79. Reproduced and mentioned p. 56, cat. 95
    Hinson, Tom H. "Alex Katz's Impala," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no.8 (1986): 314-26. Reproduced on cover, p. 314; mentioned p. 314
    Sandler, Irving. Alex Katz: A Retrospective. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998. Reproduced p. 56
    Katz, Alex. Alex Katz: The Sixties. Milano: Charta, 2006. Reproduced pp. 72-72
    Storr, Robert, Lawrence Alloway, and James Schuyler. Alex Katz Paints Ada, 1957-2005. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2006. Reproduced . 96; mentioned p. 95, 101
    Cole, Mark. “Brand-New & Terrific: The innovative early works of Alex Katz remain fresh and vital.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57, no. 3 (May/June 2017): Cover, 5-7. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 7 archive.org
  • Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (April 30-August 6, 2017).
    Alex Katz. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (March 6-June 15, 1986).
    The Year in Review for 1983. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 22-April 8, 1984).
    Alex Katz Retrospective. Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City (January 7-February 7, 1971); University of California, San Diego (February 22-April 14, 1971); Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul (July 16-October 3, 1971); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT (November 10-December 31, 1971).
    Fischbach Gallery, New York (September 26-October 22, 1970).
  • {{cite web|title=Impala|url=false|author=Alex Katz|year=1968|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1983.68