Howard Kanovitz of Southampton, a pioneer of the 1960s Photo Realism movement, died in Manhattan on February 2 of a bacterial infection following heart surgery. He was 79.
Born February 9, 1929, in Fall River, Massachusetts, Mr. Kanovitz graduated from Providence College and attended both the Rhode Island School of Design and New York University.
A student of Franz Kline, his early work in the 1950s was that of Abstract Expressionism, the style favored by Mr. Kline, Jackson Pollock and others. Stifled by the trend, Mr. Kanovitz broke away from the style in the early 1960s and found his own niche. He began working from photographs, projecting the images onto a canvas and painting over them, allowing for the best possible guide in composition and scale. His work inspired other artists of the time to incorporate photographs in the process of their art.
After his first solo show at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan in 1966, he was at the forefront of a movement that included such notables as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close and Richard Estes.
Mr. Kanovitz originally had ambitions of becoming a musician, and played the trombone professionally and for a short time in Gene Krupa’s band. He played the trombone throughout his life, and later alongside fellow friend, painter and saxophonist Larry Rivers in a group known as the East 13th Street Band. Within the hip circle of writers, artists and musicians that would congregate between Greenwich Village and Eastern Long Island in the 1950s and 1960s, Willem de Kooning, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch and Terry Southern were among his compatriots.
He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Oldenbusch Kanovitz of Southampton, a daughter, Cleo Cook and two grandsons. A previous marriage, to Mary Rattray, ended in divorce.
on Feb 11, 2009