For half a century, painter Alex Katz has found endless inspiration in one subject: his wife, Ada. Over the years, he has created approximately 300 portraits of her, capturing her essence through his unique artistic lens.

“I met her at a party. And I danced with her, and that – that was it,” Katz told sunday Morning Correspondent Sharon Alfonso, describing their first encounter. “She’s like an American beauty. She’s got, you know, short nose, full mouth. Big, lots of teeth.”

Many consider Ada to be his muse, a constant source of visual inspiration.

“I would say that,” Katz affirmed. “Yeah. She inspired a lot of paintings. It’s visual, you know. You see something you like and you want to paint it which is really simple.”

Before Ada entered the picture, there was only Alex, a New York City native who showed artistic promise from a young age.

“As a kid I was always painting everything,” Katz recalled. “I put drawings all over the staircase when I was a kid. And my parents left them there for years and years.”

Katz pursued his passion, attending art school and honing his skills. He emerged as an artist in the 1960s, a period dominated by abstract expressionism. However, Katz remained committed to his own form of realism.

“I had people screaming in galleries up until 1975,” he recounted. “Screaming. Yeah. I had people scream that ‘This is not art; this is crap.’ ‘He ought to go back to art school.’ Stuff like that.”

The First Sitting

Ada vividly remembers the first time she posed for him, marking the beginning of their artistic collaboration.

“I’m aware of this man that I’m involved with in an extremely sensual situation,” she said. “He’s looking in my eyes. He’s looking at my mouth…and it was not a sexy picture. I was fully dressed. I was freezing!”

“One of the things he loves about painting Ada is that she gives him some distance. He doesn’t have to sort of look into her soul.”

Now, a collection of 40 portraits from their 50-year artistic and romantic partnership is being showcased at New York’s Jewish Museum.

Exhibit curator Ruth Beesch explained, “One of the things he loves about painting Ada is that she gives him some distance.He doesn’t have to sort of look into her soul.”

“He’s much more interested in style, appearance, fashion, in capturing a certain look. So he’s interested in the way hair might flip on to the shoulder. He’s interested in the kind of collar. He’s interested in the way light breaks across a face and creates shapes and density. There’s very little emotional attachment.”

Actually,Katz’s portraits of his wife possess a detached,almost abstract quality,leading him to compare them to a mirror.

“That’s what it’s supposed to be,” he stated. “Yeah. It lets people see themselves. A lot of women think they’re Ada.”

Katz emphasizes that his work is purposeful, with each brushstroke carefully considered.

“Well,some brushes I use a lot,” he explained. “And some brushes I use once and never again, you know? Like this brush here – you use it on some night paintings where I wanted the white to spot. So I bought the brush [to dab] five times, ten times, clean it and that’s it.”

He is meticulous about color, often dedicating more time to mixing paints than to the actual painting process.He likens painting to playing the piano, noting that the execution itself takes only a few hours. He once completed a 12-foot canvas in less than a day.

Despite exploring various subjects, his wife remains his primary focus. He has depicted her in numerous works, yet he still considers her unique.

“She’s like a 10. In styling, you know?” he remarked. “Just her taste, taste is like – she really rarely makes a mistake,” he added.”Ada can wear anything. If she thinks it looks right.It can be quite bizarre and be out of the five- and ten-cent store. Like she just took a tablecloth and wore it to a very fancy party. And someone said, ‘Oh, who did that?'”

Even though Ada has aged as he first began painting her, Katz maintains that he paints what he observes.

“A lot of people don’t know how old they are, you know? And she’s one of them,” Katz observed. “She always thought she was about 10 or 20 years younger that what she actually is.”