Alex Katz meets Lionel Hampton

The painter Alex Katz, in a 1975 lecture:

“If we stay on style, I’ll say, the first time I ever met anyone . . . I was serving hot dogs at a black dance, and Lionel Hampton was playing. And he came over, and I had never seen anything like it. He had a royal blue, one-button lounge suit. He was the most glamorous person I had ever seen, and no one has ever surpassed it. I said, ‘Mustard?’ and he said, ‘Yes, please,’ and I said, ‘Wow!’ And, as I went on, I found myself attracted to style.”

Quoted in Katy Siegel, “Manual of Style.” In Diana Tuite, Brand New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s (Waterville, ME: Colby College Museum of Art and DelMonico Books, 2015).

Here’s the exhibit to go with the book.

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[Ellipsis in the original.]