Every so often I happen on a gallery show that's just right. Today it was paintings by Alex Katz from the 1950s to the 80s at Adam Baumgold Gallery, on the Upper East Side. But just right for what, you probably wonder.

For starters, the selection of 22 paintings, plus a drawing and a print, is just right for spending a half hour or so absorbing the sense of luxe that Katz confers on the summer scenes and portraits that make up the show. It's mostly comprised of small paintings meticulously rendered, which have the same impact as Katz's large scale works, along with two large-scale paintings that make the small ones seem even more adeptly done. In "Swimmer #3" from 1973, which is more than 6 feet across, Ada, the artist's muse and wife seems to have just surfaced, her mouth open to grab a breath of air. Her suntanned face is modeled by means of six angular patches of off-white paint - no less, no more. It's just right.

Left: Swimmer # 3, 1973. Center: Ada Behind Screen Door, 1985. Right: Self-Portrait, 1982. Copyright Alex Katz, courtesy Adam Baumgold Gallery.

Then there's the gallery itself. The way the paintings are installed you could easily spend a lot more than half an hour looking; the ground floor space on a back garden, drenched in winter light, is welcoming in the way a friend's living room might be, but without the furniture. Natural daylight ups the experience of summer sunlight that Katz so neatly conveys, whether in a scene along the edge of a salt marsh or a portrait of Ada standing at the door of the yellowest house you could ever imagine.

Across the way a pair of head and shoulder portraits of the artist and his wife hang next to the French doors. The paintings are small and they have a formal quality that's a nice counterpoint to the summery scenes all around them. What I noticed here, that I had never before seen in his work, is that Katz, who creates paintings with a spare and seemingly uncomplicated surface, had rendered the lips of his subjects in true-to-life fashion - meaning that he observed that the lower lip always appears paler than the top one because it occupies a different plane and reflects light in a different way. This pleased me a lot because it's something that I've also noticed in life; in fact I recently began using a darker shade of lipstick on my lower lip for that reason.

Alex Katz: Paintings from the 50s-80s continues through the end of January 2010. Don't miss it. Adam Baumgold Gallery, 60 East 66th Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY. 212.861.7338.

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