Morris Katz: The King of Schlock Art

Morris Katz was a one-of-a-kind artist. Two-time winner of Guinness Book of World Records for fastest and most prolific painter who used 10,000 rolls of toilet paper instead of paint brushes. His paintings can be found in over 100 art museums around the world, including three at the Smithsonian Institute. He appeared over 600 times on TV and famously said, “Paint it good, paint it fast, and sell it cheap.”

He also experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, surviving Auschwitz, and then lived in a displaced persons camp where he earned a diploma in carpentry.

Early Life

Moshe (Morris) Katz was born on March 5, 1932, in Malopolskie, Poland. As a child, his artistic talent was evident and he began to study painting under Dr. Hans Fokler of the Munich Academy when he was just 13.

After losing most of his family in the Holocaust, he came to the United States in 1949 when he was 17. He studied at the Art Students League in New York and found work as a carpenter before embracing his true calling as an artist. “Soon, I decided I was good enough—compared to others, excellent enough—to make my living as an artist.”

“Painting,” according to Morris Katz, “is like shmearing a bagel.” But to him, painting was more like performance art, or in the words of New York Magazine, a “self-contained vaudeville act”.

He developed his “Instant Art” technique around 1956 when he replaced his paint brushes with palette knives, rags, and eventually toilet paper. At the peak of his fame Morris would line up dozens of canvases and walk back and forth in front of them, using toilet paper and a palette knife (an artist’s tool with a handle and a flat, flexible blade used to mix, apply, and manipulate paint).

Katz would regularly take his performance to the Catskills where in one hour he’d create dozens of paintings while entertaining his audience. His painting subjects were varied and included seascapes and landscapes, dancing Hasidim, children, city buildings, flowers, animals, Jewish and Bible-inspired portraits, and clowns. He would finish every piece by etching his signature and the year into the paint.

He became an entertainment staple in the “Borscht Belt” hotels (Grossinger’s, The Concord, Kutsher’s and Brown’s) of New York’s Catskill Mountains where thousands of vacationers saw his performances of Instant Art.

With his thick European accent, he enthralled his audience with nonstop jokes and banter in English and Yiddish while he whipped through dozens of paintings in minutes. When he was finished, he’d auction off the paintings to his audience, usually for between $50 and $150 each.

In his 1985 autobiography, “Paint Good & Fast,” Katz described his Instant Art technique – he’d dip his palette knife into paint cans, throw the paint onto a canvas, smear it around to get a general color scheme. Then he’d switch to toilet paper to fashion details like rocks on beaches, mountaintops and clouds, or leaves on trees.

For over fifty years, Morris demonstrated his “Instant Art” techniques before worldwide audiences. He painted for 12 consecutive hours at a New York City benefit for the Boy Scouts of America on July 15, 1987. Of the 103 paintings he cranked out, he immediately sold 55 of them.

A Serious Painter Too

The King of Schlock Art had a serious side too. In 1963, he responded to President Kennedy’s assassination by painting his portrait. That led to the creation of a “Presidential Collection,” a gallery of gorgeous, detailed portraits of America’s presidents. Katz took on the project in appreciation to the country that welcomed and offered him religious freedom after the war. The collection spanned the decades from George Washington to George Herbert Walker Bush, and his paintings were printed on millions of postcards. In the background of every portrait was a historically accurate American flag ranging from George Washington’s thirteen stars to Bush’s fifty stars.

In 1965, he was personally chosen by the Vatican amongst 500 celebrated artists to paint a portrait of Pope Paul VI. Three million copies of that painting were sold across the world.

The King of Schlock Art’s Legacy

Morris was cited twice in the Guiness Book of World Records. He first earned that distinction on May 9th, 1988, when he set a new world record for speed painting with a 12- by 16-inch canvas of a child in the snow. He painted that in just 30 seconds. His second record saw him edging out Picasso in the 1990s for creating the most paintings by any other artist dead or alive. Katz’s lifetime total is over 280,000.

He also appeared in Ripley’s Believe it or Not as a “human oddity” for taking less than five minutes to paint full works of art.

Katz was a natural showman and his affable outgoing personality was one of his biggest traits. He was a great storyteller and joke teller. People loved to be around him and he loved performing in front of an audience.

Katz suffered a stroke and passed away at the age of 78 in the Bronx, New York on November 12, 2010. The Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce established the Morris Katz foundation as a “tribute to this American Jewish legend and his contributions to our nation’s history, culture, and economy.”

Duvi Honig, Founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, said, “He took enormous pride in both being a Jew and an American patriot. He selflessly dedicated himself to thank and contribute to America and the liberties it stands for. It is an honor to perpetuate Morris’s legacy during this important occasion and recognize all those who are supporting the American Jewish community today.”