Joseph Katz - Sculpture
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Dimensions: 15” x 6” x 4.5”
Medium: Hand Painted Cast Resin
Edition Size: 850
Availability: Available
Year of Release: 2024
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Friendships often have a profound impact on our lives and can be our most significant source for guidance, trust, and inspiration. This dynamic new sculpture is a bold reminder of that idea.
Dr. Seuss’s friendships played a pivotal role in nearly every facet of his personal and professional life. One of the most impactful was his relationship with Lee Katz.
Lee Katz was Dr. Seuss’s lifelong friend whom he served with during World War II. Their enduring friendship ultimately set Dr. Seuss on a new course that would inspire his artistic output for nearly 50 years.
Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) visited Katz’s home on the west coast after the war, finding the sun and views of the ocean so intoxicating that he proclaimed he wanted to move to California where he could walk around outside in his pajamas. That move proved one of the most inspiring moments of his life, with California’s flora and fauna becoming the inspiration for many of the most famous images and stories Ted would create.
The friends you love the most...who is your chosen one?
“For Ted, Lee Katz was his chosen one, whimsically honoring him in the iconic send-up of Joseph Katz and his multicolored coat.
Ted Geisel was a perennial practical joker, never missing an opportunity to poke fun at himself and those closest to him. His iconic image of Joseph Katz is a shining, multicolored example of this. In the historic biblical tale, Jacob bestows a coat of many colors upon Joseph to symbolize his chosen status. Ted twists this story to honor and elevate Lee Katz as his most valued friend.
However, beyond the whimsy is something quite poignant: Ted’s Joseph Katz becomes a powerful image for us all to pay tribute to our most important friendships.
In a gesture that further amplifies Ted’s thoughts about his closest friend, he painted Lee Katz as one of his most iconic characters – a cat. The idea of using characters to convey people in our lives was a consistent concept throughout Ted’s entire body of work, as Robert Chase, publisher of the Art of Dr. Seuss Collection writes:
“What took root early in Dr. Seuss’s art and remained constant throughout his 70 years of work was the enduring idea that every Seussian character resembles people we know. Ted instinctively infused his creatures with real emotions, so much so that we never get lost in wondering if we, or those we know, look like his characters. Instead, his real genius was that we are swept up in feeling like his characters. We are them and they are us.”