R.B. Kitaj, Civic Virtue All Over The Floor, 53/100, Screenprint, 1967

HISTORY

Ronald Brooks Kitaj (American, 1932-2007)

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Ronald Brooks (R.B.) Kitaj studied at the Cooper Union Institute in New York, the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, and the Royal College of Art in London. It was there he met fellow artist David Hockney, with whom he was included in the 1976 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery called “The Human Clay” that was organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain. Kitaj’s first solo exhibition was in 1963 at Marlborough Fine Art, and since then his work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and retrospectives, including shows at the Hirschhorn Museum, Washington DC, the Tate Gallery, London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

R. B. Kitaj helped define the post-war School of London (and coined the term itself) with his writings and bold, erudite, and expressive paintings. They referenced art history, literature, and, most significantly, Judaism. Drawing on the formalism of Paul Cezanne and Edgar Degas, Kitaj produced kaleidoscopic figurations, loose-brushed landscapes, and vibrant, collage-like compositions that synthesized ideas about history, politics, religion, and identity. Kitaj was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982. In 1985, he became the first American to be elected to the Royal Academy since 1894. Kitaj’s paintings have sold for six figures on the secondary market.