Kent poet and academic to lead Turner Contemporary talk on US painter Alex Katz

A critical discussion about Alex Katz will be led by the University's Professor David Herd at the Turner Contemporary on Thursday 01 November 2012.

Professor Herd will discuss Alex Katz and the poetry of the New York School, alongside Modern Painters co-founder, Karen Wright.

The Painter Among Poets talk coincides with the exhibition, Alex Katz: Give Me Tomorrow, on display at the Turner Contemporary, Margate until 13 January 2013.

In the late 1950s, Alex Katz made New York's poets, dancers, writers and artists the subjects of many of his paintings. He read, and collaborated with, the poets of the New York School, including Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery and James Schuyler.

Professor Herd, said: ‘Alex Katz's work emerged from a period of great collaboration between the arts. He was friends with, and worked alongside, some of the most influential American poets of the last sixty years: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and James Schuyler, among others. For such poets, the example of contemporary painters was at least as important as the influence of previous writers. What that moment in the history of the New York art scene shows us is how poetry and painting can interrelate.'

David Herd is a poet, critic and teacher of modern literature at the University's Centre for Modern Poetry. His collections of poetry include All Just (Carcanet, 2012) and Outwith (Bookthug, 2012). He is the author of two critical works, John Ashbery and American Poetry and Enthusiast! Essays on Modern American Literature.

Karen Wright was the co-founder and editor of Modern Painters magazine. She founded the Hobson Gallery in Cambridge in the 1980s. The gallery had a poetry book shop and was home to Granta magazine for many years.

The talk will take place at the Foyle rooms, 6pm. Admission is £5/£4 concessions.

For more information, visit: http://www.turnercontemporary.org/whats-on/00000000590/painter-among-poets

Contact: pressoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 11:02am 25 October 2012