YOUNGSTOWN — Artist Alex Katz left something behind after his recent exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Art.

“Collaborations with Poets,” an exhibition by the 97-year-old artist, was shown last fall at the Youngstown museum.

“He and his family were extremely pleased by the reception here and the way the guys installed the show,” Executive Director Louis A. Zona said. “I got a call from a longtime assistant of his that he wants to give you a painting. Wow. He’s really big time, a talent that needed represented in the Butler Institute, and now he is.”

Katz grew up in Queens, N.Y., the son of Russian immigrants who both had an interest in art. He went to a high school that had a program that allowed him to focus on academic subjects in the morning and the arts in the afternoon. He studied at the Cooper Union Art School in Manhattan and the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Katz drew inspiration from television, film, advertising and other aspects of American culture in his work. Zona said his early work also reflects the Abstract Expressionism of the time, and the Pop Art that followed.

His work has been shown in more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions around the world and can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

The Butler now joins that list.

Katz’s work frequently sells for seven figures at auction. “Amanda and Kyle,” the painting Katz donated to the Butler, is a large oil-on-linen work measuring 66 inches by 48 inches. It is valued at more than $80,000.

“You can’t help but think, not only of the aesthetic value of the work, but also the monetary value,” Zona said. “It’s quite a nice contribution.”

The painting can be seen in the Waldman Gallery on the second floor of the Butler.