Rosamond and John

Seen here are two luminaries, both of whom have made extraordinary contributions to the world of art: Rosamund Bernier and John Russell, married in 1975. Bernier was a brilliant writer, editor, lecturer, and commentator with close ties to modern artists in both Europe and the United States. Between 1971 and 2008, she delivered over two hundred lectures to audiences at the Met. John Russell, who passed away in 2008, was a distinguished journalist who served as chief art critic for the New York Times between 1982 and 1990. Katz was born in Brooklyn in 1928, and came of age as an artist during the heyday of the New York School. In the late 1950s, he began to develop his mature style, one characterized by elegance, simplicity, and stylized abstraction. Committed to depicting recognizable motifs, Katz minimizes details and shading, choosing instead to summarize his subjects with the help of bold contours, blocks of color, and strategic swipes of the brush.