Art, Kitaj

Kitaj, Ron B. (1932- ).

American painter and graphic artist, active mainly in England, where he has been one of the most prominent figures of the Pop art movement.
















Before becoming a student at
the Royal College of Art, Kitaj had travelled widely (he was a merchant seaman, he then served in the US army) and his wide cultural horizons made him an influential man among his contemporaries (he studied with Hockney and Allen Jones!!).











































He
held his own in his preference for figurative drawing as opposed to the more popular abstract work.
He visited Paris in
1975 and came back inspired by Degas and eager to take up pastel drawing, which he continued to use for much of his later work. Late 19th-century French art and his obsessive preoccupation with his Jewish identity  (he said) were a major influence in his work. He is quoted as saying; ‘’I took it into my cosmopolitan head that I should attempt to do Cézanne and Degas and Kafka over again, after Auschwitz.'’ Unlike the majority of Pop artists, Kitaj has had little interest in the culture of the mass media and has declared that he is not in fact ‘a Pop artist’ at all.

HE was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932 and as a child attended art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. After high school, he studied art at Cooper Union in New York and the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Following two years in Europe serving for the United States Army Kitaj became a student at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University before transferring in 1959 to the Royal College of Art in London. Kitaj remained in Europe, spending 40 of those years in London, until 1997 when he moved to Los Angeles.









Kitaj's work is included in numerous public collections throughout the western world and beyond.

Kitaj was one of the great figurative artists of the post-World War II period. An expatriate American living in London for many years, he returned to make his home and work in Southern California a number of years ago, after the tragically early death of his wife, the artist Sandra Fisher.
At that time, his important retrospective show at the Tate Gallery (this was 1994) had been widely, even cruelly, panned by critics, primarily on account of the lengthy explanatory texts he apparently felt necessary to include next to the paintings on the walls, in case they should be misunderstood. He bitterly and publicly denounced his critics for having contributed to Sandra’s sudden death of an aneurism, and later produced a painting called “The Critic Kills,” signed “By Ron and Sandra.”

My own opinion of his work is that he is a most excellent draughts person and figurative painter, particularly in his use of line. My favourite of his works is a drawing called Mary Anne………..this shows what I mean about his ability to draw expressively.  There are other works of his that I really do not like, but then if his objective was to do ‘’ Cézanne and Degas and Kafka over again, after Auschwitz.'’, especially from the jewish perspective, It’s not surprising that I find some of the work unpleasant.

delete reply vine2vine wrote on Jul 13, '09 Oh...lovely art work!...Cheryl

delete reply pestep55 wrote on Jul 5, '09, edited on Jul 5, '09 Never heard of him, really love some of the work though. He has quite a varied techniques, the detail is excellent. I am off to look up his wife's work as well /:-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Jul 5, '09 very interesting :)

delete reply starfishred wrote on Jul 5, '09 I like a few of his things but generally well-very good post loretta will look up his wife

delete reply veryfrank wrote on Jul 4, '09 I know that I have seen some of his work on exhibition somewhere, perhaps in London?? Some is very familiar to me. Like others, some of it I like and some - not so much to my taste. I especially like the figure drawings. If I were an artist, I would want to be influenced by Cézanne and Degas.

delete reply acousticeagle wrote on Jul 4, '09 ooops, I know sometimes I don't get my right from my left. But I meant the nude in the top 'left'...duh. But you know the pic!

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 4, '09 brendainmad said Sorry, didn't mean to go on so much! don't be silly...............comments are welcome, its good to have discussions about the different artists

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Jul 4, '09 I'm glad you find some of his work unpleasant. I'll just say that some of it isn't to my taste. I can see both points of view about his work - the artist himself and of course the critics. I think sometimes explanations are helpful with some paintings, but lengthy ones tend to confuse or take away from the viewer's opinion of what the artist is trying to convey. Sorry, didn't mean to go on so much! Thanks, Loretta and well done.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 4, '09 acousticeagle said I like the nude in the top right I like her too..............the ones that I really didn't like I didn't include here. This guy is almost an acquired taste cos the more I look at this stuff the more I like it, and I really do admire the way he draws figures, his lines are wonderful, they are sharp and realistic and decorative all at the same time. I also admire the way he didn't follow his contemporaries into straight forward modern art led by media images..........he remained an independent thinker.

delete reply acousticeagle wrote on Jul 4, '09 Hmm, I'm picking up some rebellious anger in his pictures, maybe that's the negativity that you're perceiving...? I like the nude in the top right of all the pictures below the header picture. There's a fair bit of diversity in the pictures too, from bright and blocky to sketchy and moody - to linear. He might have been a bit of a manic personality. An eccentric, quite possibly?