r. b. kitaj - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5/14/2018 R. B. Kitaj - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia - slidepdf.com

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/r-b-kitaj-wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia 1/5

"Through an earlier pre-occupationwith turn-of-the-century intellectual

life in Vienna (where he had startedhis art studies in the early ‘50’s), as

R. B. KitajFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ronald Brooks Kitaj (29 October 1932 – 21 October 2007)[1] (pronounced ki-TIE) was an

American artist who spent much of his life in England.

Contents

1 Life

2 Career

3 Notes

4 References

5 Further reading

6 External links

Life

Born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, near Cleveland, United States, his Hungarian father, Sigmund Benway,

left his mother, Jeanne Brooks, shortly after he was born and they were divorced in 1934.[2] His

mother was the American-born daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants. She worked in a steel mill

and as a teacher. She remarried in 1941, to Dr. Walter Kitaj, an Austrian research chemist, and

Ronald took his surname. His mother and stepfather were non-practicing Jews. He was educated at

Troy High School. He became a merchant seaman with a Norwegian freighter when he was 17. Hestudied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna and the Cooper Union in New York City.

After serving in the United States Army for two years, in France and Germany, he moved to England

to study at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford (1958–59) under the G.I. Bill,

where he developed a love of Cézanne, and then at the Royal College of Art in London (1959–61),

alongside David Hockney, Derek Boshier, Peter Phillips, Allen Jones and Patrick Caulfield. Richard

Wollheim, the philosopher and David Hockney remained life-long friends.[3]

Kitaj married his first wife, Elsi Roessler, in 1953; they had a son, screenwriter Lem Dobbs, and

adopted a daughter, Dominie. His first wife committed suicide in 1969. After living together for 12

years, he married Sandra Fisher in December 1983; they had one son, Max. Sandra Fisher died of a

brain aneurysm in 1994. Kitaj had a mild heart attack in 1990. He died in Los Angeles in October

2007, eight days before his 75th birthday.[4] Seven weeks after Kitaj's death, the Los Angeles County

coroner ruled that the cause of death was suicide.[5]

Career

Kitaj settled in England, and through the 1960s taught

at the Ealing Art College, the Camberwell School of

Art and the Slade School of Art. He also taught at the

University of California, Berkeley in 1968. He stagedhis first solo exhibition at Marlborough New London

R. B. Kitaj - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._B._Kitaj

1 of 5 28/01/2012 19:11



well as an admiration for the WarburgInstitute approach to the history of art-in-its-intellectual-context (sinceafter Vienna he had moved to Oxfordto study with the art historian EdgarWind, before going on to the RoyalCollege of Art) Kitaj has come to

identify most strongly with the centralEuropean Jewish writer Franz Kafka,and with his sense of estrangementand of hidden mysteries. Illustrationsto Kafka’s aphorisms, imaginaryportraits of his fiancée Felice andCount West-West who owned ‘TheCastle’, appear in the Little Pictures,as do rapidly sketched portraits of KarlKraus, Paul Celan, Leon Trotsky andLudwig Wittgenstein, representationsof Judeo-Christian mysteries of the

hidden face of God, and the artist’smeditations on the Jewish Christ."

— from Catalogue for Kitaj's "Little

Pictures"[6]

Gallery in London in 1963, entitled "Pictures with

commentary, Pictures without commentary", in which

text included in the pictures and the accompanying

catalogue referred to a range of literature and history.

He selected an exhibition for the Arts Council at the

Hayward Gallery in 1976, entitled "The Human Clay"

(an allusion to a line by W. H. Auden), includingworks by 48 London artists, such as William Roberts,

Richard Carline, Colin Self and Maggi Hambling,

championing the cause of figurative art at a time

when abstract was dominant. In an essay in the

controversial catalogue, he invented the phrase the

"School of London" to describe painters such as

Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Francis Bacon,

Lucian Freud, Euan Uglow, Michael Andrews,

Reginald Gray and himself.[7]

Kitaj had a significant influence on British Pop art,

with his figurative paintings featuring areas of bright

colour, economic use of line and overlapping planes

which made them resemble collages, but eschewing

most abstraction and modernism. Allusions to

political history, art, literature and Jewish identity often recur in his work, mixed together on one

canvas to produce a collage effect. He also produced a number of screen-prints with printer Chris

Prater. He told Tony Reichardt, manager of the Marlborough New London Gallery, that he made

screen-prints as sketches for his future paintings. From then onwards Tony Reichardt commissioned

Chris Prater to print 3 or 4 copies of every print he made on canvas. His later works became more

personal.

Kitaj was recognised as being one of the world's leading draftsmen, almost on a par with, or

compared to, Degas. Indeed, he was taught drawing at Oxford by Percy Horton, himself a pupil of

Walter Sickert, who was a pupil of Degas; and the teacher of Degas studied under Ingres. His more

complex compositions build on his line work using a montage practice, which he called 'agitational

usage'. Kitaj often depicts disorienting landscapes and impossible 3D constructions, with

exaggerated and pliable human forms. He often assumes a detached outsider point of view, in

conflict with dominant historical narratives. This is best portrayed by his masterpiece "The Autumn

of Central Paris" (1972–73), wherein philosopher Walter Benjamin is portrayed, as both the

orchestrator and victim of historical madness. The futility of historical progress creates a disjointedarchitecture that is maddening to deconstruct.[citation needed ] He staged a major exhibition at Los

Angeles County Museum of Art in 1965, and a retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in

Washington D.C. in 1981. He selected paintings for an exhibition, "The Artist's Eye", at the National

Gallery, London in 1980.

In his later years, he developed a greater awareness of his Jewish heritage, which found expression in

his works, with reference to the Holocaust and influences from Jewish writers such as Kafka and

Walter Benjamin, and he came to consider himself to be a "wandering Jew". In 1989, Kitaj published

"First Diasporist Manifesto", a short book in which he analysed his own alienation, and how this

contributed to his art. His book contained the remark: "The Diasporist lives and paints in two ormore societies at once." And he added: "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Diasporist."[8]


2 of 5 28/01/2012 19:11



A second retrospective was staged at the Tate Gallery in 1994. Critical reviews in London were

almost universally negative. British press savagely attacked the Tate exhibit, calling Kitaj a

pretentious poseur who engaged in name dropping. Kitaj took the criticism very personally, declaring

that “anti-intellectualism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism” had fueled the vitriol. Despite the

bad reviews, the exhibition moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and afterwards

to the Los Angeles County Museum in 1995. His second wife, Sandra Fisher died of a brain

aneurysm in 1994, shortly after his exhibition at the Tate Gallery had ended. He blamed the Britishpress for her death, stating that “they were aiming for me, but they got her instead.” David Hockney

concurred and said that he too believed the London art critics had killed Sandra Fisher.[9] Kitaj

returned to the US in 1997 and settled in Los Angeles, near his first son. "When my Wife died", he

wrote to Edward Chaney, "London died for me and I returned home to California to live among sons

and grandsons - It was a very good move and now I begin my 3rd and (last?) ACT! hands across The

Sea." [10] Three years later he wrote: "I grow older every day and rather like my hermit life." [11] The

"Tate War" and Sandra's death became a central themes for his later works: he often depicted himself

and his deceased wife as angels.

Kitaj was one of several artists to make a post-it note in celebration of 3M's 20th anniversary. Whenauctioned on the internet in 2000, the charcoal and pastel piece sold for $925, making it the most

expensive post-it note in history, a fact recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. Kitaj was

elected to the Royal Academy in 1991, the first American to join the Academy since John Singer

Sargent. He received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1995. He staged another exhibition

at the National Gallery in 2001, entitled "Kitaj in the Aura of Cézanne and Other Masters".

In September 2010 Kitaj and five British artists including Howard Hodgkin, John Walker, Ian

Stephenson, Patrick Caulfield and John Hoyland were included in an exhibition entitled The

Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art From the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, at

the Yale Center for British Art.

[12][13]

Notes

^ Obituary, The Times, October 23, 2007 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2718830.ece)

1.

^ Obituary, New York Times, October 24, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/arts/24kitaj.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin)

2.

^ Obituary, The Guardian, October 23, 2007 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2197035,00.html)

3.

^ Obituary, The Independent , October 25, 2007 (http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3093771.ece)

4.

^ Boehm, Mike (2007-12-05). "Kitaj's Death is ruled a suicide" (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/05/entertainment/et-quick5.s5) . Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/05/entertainment/et-quick5.s5.

5.

^ KITAJ: LITTLE PICTURES & Embroidered Works by various artists(http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/exhibitions/view.asp?id=188)

6.

^ Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2007 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/10/24/db2401.xml)

7.

^ Kitaj, First Diasporist Manifesto, 198.^ R. B. Kitaj 1932-2007, Charles Donelan, Santa Barbara Independent (http://www.independent.com/news/2007/nov/08/r-b-kitaj-1932-2007/) Retrieved January 25, 2011

9.

^ Postcard (Whistler vs. Ruskin 1992) dated June 1999.10.^ Postcard to E. Chaney: My Cat and Her Husband 1977, dated June 2002.11.

^ Channeling American Abstraction, Karen Wilkin, Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703384204575510000761287206.html) Retrieved October 7, 2010

12.


3 of 5 28/01/2012 19:11



^ NY Times, exhibition review (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artct.html?_r=1&ref=design) Retrieved December 15, 2010

13.

References

Kitaj, R. B. (1989). First Diasporist Manifesto. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500275432.

Further reading

Chaney, Edward,‘Kitaj versus Creed’, The London Magazine (April 2002), pp. 106-11.

Duncan, Robert. "A Paris Visit, with R.B. Kitaj". Conjunctions, no. 8, Fall 1985, pp. 8–17

Kampf, Avraham. Chagall to Kitaj: Jewish Experience in Twentieth-Century Art .

Exhibition catalogue. London: Lund Humphries and the Barbican Art Gallery, 1990.

Kitaj R. B. First Diasporist Manifesto. London : Thames and Hudson, 1989.

Kitaj R. B. The Second Diasporist Manifesto. New Haven, CT : Yale University Press,

2007.

Kitaj R. B. / Irving Petlin. Rubbings…The Large Paintings and the Small Pastels.Exhibition catalogue. Purchase, New York, and Chicago: Neuberger Museum and Arts

Club of Chicago, 1978.

Lambirth, Andrew. Kitaj . London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0 85667 571 7

Livingstone, Marco (1985). R. B. Kitaj . Phaidon. ISBN 0714822043.

Palmer, Michael. “Four Kitaj Studies”, The Promises of Glass. New York: New Directions

Publishing, 2000.

External links

Studio International review (http://www.studio-international.co.uk/reports/kitaj_cezanne.asp)

KITAJ: LITTLE PICTURES & Embroidered Works by various artists

(http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/exhibitions/view.asp?id=188) feature at the

Marlborough Fine Art website

R. B. Kitaj 1932—2007 (http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2007/10/r.html) A cyber-tombeau

at Silliman's Blog by poet Ron Silliman includes comments, tributes, and links

R.B. Kitaj: views of a fractured century (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248

/is_n3_v83/ai_16821892) this article, by Ken Johnson, appeared as the cover story for the

magazine Art in America in March, 1995.

R.B. Kitag at the Vitro Nasu Blog Archive (http://www.mutanteggplant.com/vitro-nasu/2007/10/25/r-b-kitaj/) includes links to A Day Book (Text by Robert Creeley with 13

‘graphics’ by R B Kitaj); Renewal and Resistance (David Cohen in conversation with R.B.

KITAJ in Los Angeles) & A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, with art

by R. B. Kitaj

Obituary, The Economist , 3 November 2007 (http://www.economist.com/obituary

/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10059669)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=R._B._Kitaj&oldid=472000038"

Categories: 1932 births 2007 deaths People from Cuyahoga County, Ohio

Jewish American artists American painters British painters Jewish painters


4 of 5 28/01/2012 19:11



British printmakers Pop artists Royal Academicians Alumni of the Royal College of Art

Cooper Union alumni Alumni of Camberwell College of Arts British Jews

British people of American descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent

American people of Hungarian descent Artists who committed suicide

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni Alumni of the University of the Arts

This page was last modified on 19 January 2012 at 05:34.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional

terms may apply. See Terms of use for details.

Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit

organization.


5 of 5 28/01/2012 19:11

r. b. kitaj - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Documents