R. B. Kitaj

Ronald Brooks Kitaj (1932-2007) was born in the USA but eventually moved to Britain and came to strongly influence British Pop Art. Early on he displayed an avid interest in literature. Many of his works are rich in literary references, both through hand-written elements but also through subtle allusions. The American Robert Rauschenberg was an important inspiration for Kitaj, inasmuch as he was one of the first artists to incorporate real objects into paintings. While British Pop artists such as David Hockney and Peter Blake tend to reference Pop culture in their works, it is uncommon to find this in works by Kitaj. Instead, his pictures often hold references to Jewish history and art history.

This exhibition includes the painting The Killer Critic, Assassinated by His Widower, Even (1997). It is in many respects unique in Kitaj’s oeuvre. He painted it in reaction to his treatment by critics during his large retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1994. There was massive criticism. Two weeks later, his wife, the artist Sandra Fischer, died of an aneurysm, only 47 years old. Kitaj believed the critics’ savage treatment of the exhibition had directly impacted her health and led to her death. Here in this work, bereavement and frustration are drawn in powerful brushstrokes and strong colour. The explosive motif pays homage both to Manet’s Execution of the Emperor Maximilian (1868) and to Picasso’s cubist portraits. The title and motif can be interpreted as a threat to the critics. The way the title is phrased refers directly to Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (1915-23). As such, Kitaj’s painting well exemplifies how he uses art historical references. He has integrated various book covers into the work’s lower left corner. The book titles refer to murder, punishment and anti-Semitism and help deepen and refine Kitaj’s intentions in the picture.

Figuration has always been important for Kitaj. In 1976, while minimalist and conceptual art were at the height of popularity, he curated a controversial exhibition of figurative paintings and drawings for London’s Hayward Gallery. The exhibition, called The Human Clay, was accompanied by Kitaj’s catalogue essay 'The School of London'. Since then, this phrase has often been used to describe a generation of artists who work with diverse figurative expressions. Some key artists in this group are Frank Auerback, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney and Leon Kossoff. An artist Kitaj collaborated with – worth mentioning here because his work can also be found in Rotations #2 – is the American Jim Dine. Kitaj met Dine in 1965 and they exhibited together at the Cincinnati Museum in 1973. At that time they cultivated a common interest in life drawing. In Rotations #2, however, we emphasize Dine and Kitaj’s contributions to the development of painting in relation to Pop Art.

Towards the end of his life Kitaj continued with figure studies, both through drawings and paintings in large formats. He is without doubt one of the Postwar period’s most interesting and complex painters.

HBU