Alex Katz has painted landscapes throughout his career that often feature views from his home in Maine, as does Sunrise. Katz captures what he refers to as “the present tense,” or a “flash,” just before the image comes into focus. The moment is the early morning sun glowing beyond a forest of birch trees, a sublime scene as the sun rises from the horizon and scatters light in colors across the sky. The subjects of Katz’s landscapes are form, surface, space and light as they appear to him in nature.

Sunrise is a 6-run lithograph, woodcut, screen print with the initial run a 3-color blend roll for the sky, followed by 3 additional lithographic runs of yellow, orange and a dense black. A hand-cut red oak woodcut with a transparent black ink is followed by a final screenprint run also in a very transparent flat black. This technique allows for the rich wood grain to be seen in the depths of the birch trees that are central to the image.