Jack Katz: The Golden Age and Beyond, a Jack Katz Retrospective

In the tradition of Indie and DIY, some of Jack Katz’s students and supporters got together and created a retrospective show of Jack’s art. Aptly titled, Jack Katz: The Golden Age and Beyond, the show captures everything from Jack’s early work for publishers like Timely, Warren, and EC to his latest work, a graphic novel called “Beyond the Beyond.”

Organizers Deanna Horvath, Cindy Mosca rented a pop up space at 2037 4th Street in Berkeley for the two day show. Ted Jalbert and Brian Miller helped to provide materials and install the show. Since Jack’s most famous work, his magnum opus, The First Kingdom was independently published in Berkeley by Bud Plant and initially by Comics and Comix, it seemed appropriate to do the show there. Also Jack has been teaching figure drawing in Albany (North Berkeley) for many years and his students and former students all live in the area.

The show features enlargements of full color covers Jack did the early years that he refers to as “the factory years,” when artists like himself worked like cogs in a machine, each being able to draw in “the house style” so that if any artist passed out from exhaustion, another could step in to make sure they could complete the pages before the deadline.

After years of working with every major publishing house of the time, Jack decided with his then wife and longtime supporter Caroline Katz to publish his own work, The First Kingdom. The work, often hailed as the first graphic novel, would take some 15 years to complete, though they didn’t know that at the time.

There are also enlargements of Jack’s oroginal art boards. Unlike many comic artists and graphic novelists, not one single art board was sold off. It was always understood that this work should not be sold off piecemeal. It was too important and significant as a whole to be broken up in any way.

There is a room in which a slideshow is projected on the walls which shows various artists through the ages who have influenced Jack’s work or which have inspired him. Jack is fond of saying, “Excellence is the only authority.” It has become his motto and a recurring theme in his teaching, where he often cites the works of what he considers the greats. Among these are his heroes in comic art, Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, but you will also find great illustrators like Dean Cornwell, the so-called Dean of Illustrators. And there are painters like Fernand Cormon, particularly his painting, “Cain (1880),” which depicts Cain, the elder son of Adam and Eve, who, after the murder of his younger brother Abel was condemned to perpetual wandering. A haggard Cain is seen doggedly leading his tribe, some being carried on a wooden stretcher, through the desert. Like many of Jack’s illustrations and paintings, the human condition is depicted in almost rococo detail with great attention to anatomy and the figures are palpable in the way they succumb to gravity. If you look at the shadows, you can also see they are traveling across th desert in the blazing mid-day sun.

Jack describes his own style as “imaginitive realism.” Much of Jack’s own work he views as something beyond art pieces as a commodity or pretty pictures that serve to tell a story. Thier greater purpose and intention is to serve as teaching tools – to help his students master the kind of excellence that could only be found in the past. A past that Jack is happy to curate. He doesn’t believe in the institutions which he says are often corrupted by the vagueries and vicissitudes of the art world. So here we get a glimpse of the masters as Jack sees them, everyone from sculptors to painters to comics artists. “It doesn’t matter what means of expression you choose,” says Jack, “that means of expression may not yet even exist yet, but it is up to you, as an artist, to discover it.” This was the case for Jack when he had the idea that he wanted to creat a “graphic novel,” an art form wherein a novel could be illustrated and would be visual literature. He tossed the idea around with his mentors, the aforementioned Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, but also with Will Eisner who is often credited as the inventor of “the graphic novel.” Recently correspondence between Katz and Eisner reveals that the idea may have fomented through thier discussions about the idea.

Jack Katz: The Golden Age and Beyond ran Saturday through Sunday, October 24-25, 2020 with an artist’s reception on Sunday from 2-5pm where jack will do live drawing demos, sign things and greet guests.