The artist’s practices have been compared by art historians to painters ranging from Renaissance masters to Modernist titans, all of whom he has studied in depth. In many respects, his output has mirrored facets of American art over the five decades of his prolific career: he has utilized the exaggerated scale of the Abstract Expressionists, employed vivid color and brilliant light like Color Field painters, and focused on everyday themes that are hallmarks of Pop Art. He synthesized these elements into his own signature style while carving out a special niche in the art world.

Although he is primarily associated in the public mind with New York City, where he was born and continues to maintain his primary residence and studio, Katz has extended and extensive links to Maine. For more than a half century he has returned every summer to a home and studio in midcoastal Lincolnville, where he creates small oil sketches based on observations of people and land around him. They form the basis for monumental canvases painted in his Manhattan studio in the fall.

Two current exhibitions, “Alex Katz in Maine” at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, (through October 16) and “Alex Katz: Collages” at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, (through September 18) document the artist’s ties to the Pine Tree State. The Farnsworth show, organized by the museum, travels to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts next summer.

As Farnsworth interim director Suzette Lane McAvoy notes, Maine’s “rural setting provides a dramatic counterpoint to…[Katz’s] milieu in New York City, yet it is no less rich in imagery.” His depictions of everyday scenes, she adds, demonstrate that “Katz’s Maine is not the tourist view of crashing surf and lighthouses; it is at once more intimate, and more universal.”

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of art-loving, bohemian parents who had emigrated from Russia, Katz grew up in an unusual house in Queens. It was enlivened with rooms painted in vivid colors and varied patterns. Katz found these decorative touches “bizarre” and recalls trying to paint the walls of his bedroom in more sedate, “ordinary” hues.

He started out studying commercial art and then enrolled, from 1946 to 1949, at Cooper Union Art School, where he developed an interest in painting. “I had a great time and got a grand education,” says Katz. “It was the best time in my life. I started painting there, and it made me feel like a normal person, not so strange.”

A top student at Cooper Union, young Katz had a chance to attend summer school at Yale University or at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine. He chose the latter, beginning his long association with Maine.

One of the most memorable works on view, “6:30 PM,” was painted with dark, dramatic flair, and was completed last year.

During the summers of 1949 and 1950 at the Skowhegan School,then what he has described as “a regional art school which knewnothing about modern art,” Katz learned the rewards of workingoutside the studio. “At Skowhegan,” he recalls, “I tried plein airpainting and found my subject matter and a reason to devote my lifeto painting.”

He adds that “It was the first time I had done direct painting and it was a real kick. It was a blast…My talents and instincts were all towards this explosive, fast painting.”

In 1954, Katz purchased a small, more than 200-year-old, somewhat rundown farmhouse and stable (that initially served as a studio) in Lincolnville, a bit inland from the coast. Over the years he has renovated the place, but it retains much of its spartan interior.

“Yellow House 2,” 2001, captures the startling exterior color of the old structure that makes it stand out in its country site. In the whopping (48 by 130 inches) “9 PM,” 1990, only a corner of the yellow house appears, backed by the black night sky.

At the Lincolnville site, writes McAvoy in the catalog, “The surrounding woods, nearby pond, the local lobster pound and sand beach, the Islesboro ferry slip, and visiting friends…and, of course, his family…have provided subjects for more than 50 years of painting.”

Longtime New York Times art critic Grace Glueck once described Katz as “New York to the bone: street-smart, wire-taut, fast and funny on his feet, his accent a local breed.” In Lincolnville, however, the painter is very much down-home and casual, reveling in the slower pace, fewer distractions and outdoor attractions of his rural place. He often works wearing a white T-shirt, shorts and no shoes in the large studio he built through the woods from his house, fronting on serene Coleman Pond.

In “Trophy III,” 1973, a 71-by-35-inch oil on aluminum, his young son Vincent proudly displays a fish, perhaps caught in the pond. “Canoe,” 1974, beautifully captures the reflection of a white birchbark boat on what is undoubtedly the placid surface of Coleman Pond.

Seagulls, a common sight even somewhat inland along the Maine coast, are a favorite Katz subject. “Seagull in Morning Sun,” 2000, measuring a sizable 60 by 72 inches, depicts the graceful flight of a bird against a yellow background.

In the late 1950s, he created a series of small but compelling collages made from cut pieces of colored paper. Highly appealing in their own right, they presage the simplification, playfulness, vibrant colors and idiosyncratic touch of his later works on canvas. These “very flat, simple, rather elegant” collages, says Colby Museum director Daniel Rosenfeld, “have a kind of simplicity that was emerging in his painting at the same time.”

The Colby exhibition brings together for the first time a large selection of collages, including eight from the museum’s own collection. Most measure around 6 by 8 inches, with a few as large as 18 by 23 inches. Many suggest the influence of Henri Matisse’s late paper cutouts.

“Wallflowers in a Vase,” circa 1955, and “Picnic at the Beach,” 1960, demonstrate how Katz’s deft arrangements of colored papers in multihued, sparse and pure compositions lead to images of considerable charm.

The Colby show is accompanied by a catalogue raisonné of Katz collages produced by guest curator David Cohen, gallery director at the New York Studio School and art critic of the New York Sun.

In 1992, the artist donated more than 400 of his works that are now displayed in the Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Works of Alex Katz.

Some of Katz’s early, relatively small Maine paintings reflect his familiarity with work of fellow artists Fairfield Porter (a summer resident of a Maine island) and Larry Rivers. “Clam Digger,” 1958, a popular subject for Maine artists, is reminiscent of Porter’s harmonious simplicity and Rivers’ brushy canvases.

“Clam Digger,” 1958, oil on canvas, 311/2 by 461/4 inches.

In the 1960s, Katz’s art became increasingly characterized byflattened, fundamental images; close compositional cropping; playwith scale; a kind of friezelike monumentality and vivid colors. Heenlarged the size of his pictures in an effort to compete withother contemporary artists.

Over the last five decades, portraits and figurative groups have been central to Katz’s work. His favorite subject has been his attractive wife, Ada, who has likely been depicted more often by a major artist than any spouse in history.

Katz calls his wife “the perfect model, an American beauty…What I do is cast her in different roles.” Ada appears solo, wearing sunglasses and in profile in “View,” 1962, while in “Summer Seven,” 1993, she wears shades, a T-shirt and shorts as she surveys a gaggle of handsome young people in casual summer garb.

The Katzes’ son Vincent, a Renaissance man who writes knowingly about his father and his work, has appeared in numerous pictures. “Alex, Ada and Vincent,” 1961, serves to announce his entry into the family.

A riveting portrait from the Farnsworth collection, “Rudy,” 1980, captures the visage of Katz’s friend and Maine neighbor, the late Rudy Burckhardt, posed with what is probably Penobscot Bay behind him. Measuring 72 by 60 inches, this canvas, like other works in the show, is hung at eye-level, intensifying the impact of the subject’s enigmatic gaze.

Burckhardt, a fine photographer and accomplished painter, had an impact on the evolution of Katz’s art. McAvoy says that “It was perhaps in the work…of Burckhardt that…Katz realized that the best art can be prompted by situations in which nothing particular is going on.”

Examples of Katz’s large, stiffly posed group likenesses tend to feature young people bathed in midday sun going about everyday leisure activities. On view are twosomes, such as “Islesboro Ferry Slip,” 1976, and “Ace Airport,” 1996, and one with three figures, “Bridge,” 1990,

Largest of all, with seven figures, is “Summer Seven,” 1993, which measures an eye-popping 90 by 145 inches. Each canvas, while conveying happy times, is characterized by a cool sense of psychological distance among those depicted. “My work,” Katz observes, “is nonnarrative.”

Large, impressive yet sensitive landscapes have become an important facet of Katz’s Maine oeuvre. In “Black Brook 7,” 1989, thin branches and delicate leaves float on pitch-black water, while in “Rain,” 1992, slim white lines suggest the downpour pelting a house in the woods. These evocative works suggest the accuracy of University of Southern Maine art historian Donna Cassidy’s observation that Katz’s Maine landscapes tend to “deal with transitional moments in nature, provocative times of day when light and weather transform the environment.”

Recent paintings in the Farnsworth exhibition demonstrate that the lean and wiry artist is still going strong well into his 70s. Indeed, two of the most memorable works on view, “6:30 PM” and “Lincolnville Harbor,” each painted with dark, dramatic flair, were completed last year.

The Colby and Farnsworth displays, showcasing the significant role the Pine Tree State plays in this painter’s work, will be greatly enjoyed by Katz’s legion of admirers. These selections from the artist’s extensive oeuvre suggest why Alex Katz is one of America’s best-liked and most famous living artists.

The Farnsworth catalog includes a useful foreword by McAvoy, perceptive “Maine Memories” by Vincent Katz and an insightful essay by art critic Sanford Schwartz titled “An Unflashy Idyll.” Published by Edizioni Charta of Milan, Italy, it sells for $45.

The Farnsworth Art Museum is at 16 Museum Street (on Route 1) in the heart of Rockland. For information, 207-596-6457 or www.farnsworthmuseum.org.

The Colby College Museum of Art is on the Colby campus on the outskirts of Waterville. For information, 207-872-3228 or www.colby.edu/museum.