Telluriders in Pittsburgh: Katz at Carnegie and a Warhol at Warhol Museum

Cold, snow and wind are pre-empting fall in Telluride and elsewhere in America. Telluride Inside…and Out is in Pittsburgh, where rain washed out plans for grandkids' soccer games. On Friday, however, we visited the extraordinary Carnegie Museum, whose must-see permanent collection – two Van Goghs in one of the Impressionist galleries are worth the price of entry, not to mention one of the best of Monet's waterlilies series – includes a new Alex Katz, given star billing in the lobby. The Alex Katz depicts trees in fall, irresistible given TIO's ongoing coverage of the colors of a season fast coming to a close.

Alex Katz had his first one-person show at the Roko Gallery in New York in 1954. In the 1960s, his large-scale paintings became central to the development of the new realism. The energy permeating Katz's flat paintings looked back to Abstract Expressionism, but the subject matter and scale looked forward to the content and vernacular of Andy Warhol and Pop Art. Katz remains an art world fixture and titan.

On the subject of Pop Art, TIO also visited The Warhol Museum in PIttsburgh, a shrine to the man who made Campbell Soup cans, Marilyn Monroe (and other major celebrities) and an electric chair equally important icons.  (A Warhol portrait of Andrew Carnegie hangs in the lobby of  the Carnegie.)

On the outing to the Warhol Museum, we ran into an entourage that included Warhol's older brother John, now confined to a wheel chair.