Or save it to favorites and we'll tell you if this item goes on sale!
- Get the Chairish App
- to view in your space
Ronald Brooks Kitaj, Dr Claribel & Miss Etta (Cone Sisters) British Pop Artist Kitaj Pastel Drawing, 1997-2000
- Get the Chairish App
- to view in your space
Details
Description
Ronald Brooks Kitaj RA 1932 – 2007 was an American artist with Jewish roots who spent much of his life …
more
Ronald Brooks Kitaj RA 1932 – 2007 was an American artist with Jewish roots who spent much of his life in England. He became a merchant seaman with a Norwegian freighter when he was 17. He studied 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 lifelong friends.
"Through an earlier pre-occupation with turn-of-the-century intellectual life in Vienna (where he had started his art studies in the early 1950s), as well as an admiration for the Warburg Institute approach to the history of art-in-its-intellectual-context (since after Vienna he had moved to Oxford to study with the art historian Edgar Wind, before going on to the Royal College of Art) Kitaj has come to identify most strongly with the central European Jewish writer Franz Kafka, and with his sense of estrangement and of hidden mysteries. Illustrations to Kafka's aphorisms, imaginary portraits of his fiancée Felice and Count West-West who owned The Castle, appear in the Little Pictures, as do rapidly sketched portraits of Karl Kraus, Paul Celan, Leon Trotsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein, representations of Judeo-Christian mysteries of the hidden face of God.
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 staged his first solo exhibition at Marlborough New London 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, citing Aby Warburg's analysis of symbolic forms as a major influence.
He curated 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), including works 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, Peter de Francia and himself.
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.[citation needed] 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 three or four 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, whom Kitaj claimed was a pupil of Walter Sickert, who was a pupil of Degas; and the teacher of Degas studied under Ingres. 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 1981 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1984.
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 or more societies at once." And he added: "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Diasporist."
A second retrospective was staged at the Tate Gallery in 1994. the exhibition moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and afterwards to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1995. 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.
In October 2012 a major international symposium was held in Berlin to mark what would have been Kitaj's 80th birthday. It accompanied Obsessions, the first comprehensive exhibition of Kitaj's work since his death, held at the Jewish Museum, Berlin. The exhibition was shown in the UK in two parts at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and the Jewish Museum London.
less
Shipping Options
Standard Returns & Cancellations
Return Policy - All sales are final 48 hours after delivery, unless otherwise specified in the description of the product.
Extended Return for Trade
- Expands return window for trade members to 14 days (12 days more than our standard return policy)
- Trade member to notify Chairish of intent to return within 14 days of item delivery
- Buyer refunded item cost. Buyer pays return shipping cost
- Does not apply to damages that occur post-delivery
Questions about the item?
Related Collections
- Richard Caldicott Drawings
- Rococo Drawings
- Fashion Drawings
- Architectural Drawings
- Chartreuse Drawings
- Raymond Loewy Drawings
- Tom McGlynn Drawings
- Collura and Co. Drawings
- Grand Tour Drawings
- Feather Drawings
- Memphis Drawings
- Shell Drawings
- Aesthetic Movement Drawings
- Richard Serra Drawings
- Regency Drawings
- Drawings in Las Vegas
- John Begg Drawings
- Leather Drawings
- Persian Drawings
- Drawings in Aspen
- Safari Drawings
- Drawings in Minneapolis
- Post Impressionist Drawings
- Photography Drawings
- Pencil Drawings
Returns
- Does not arrive
- Is broken during transit
- Is entirely different than what you purchased
- Some made-to-order items and a limited selection of other items (noted as non-refundable in the returns and cancellations section of the product description)
-
Orders where Free Local Pickup or Seller Managed Local Delivery were selected:
- Upon inspection, If you decide not to move forward with the purchase, you or your agent must refuse the item at the time of pickup/delivery from the seller
- Once you have taken possession of the item, all sales are final
- International, cross-border returns may require different processes depending on the countries between which the item is shipping to/from, and the buyer is responsible and duties (if applicable, on cross-border orders).
- On approved returns, the buyer is responsible for the full cost of return packing and shipping.
Cancellations
- Prior to shipping or local pickup, buyers may cancel an order for any reason, with the exception of some Made-to-Order items, where supplies have been purchased or work begun on the item.
- Please notify us within 24 hours of purchase if you would like to cancel an order, as prompt cancellation will reduce the likelihood that you will incur return shipping charges.
- Once shipping or pickup has been initiated, the cancellation will be considered a return and you will be responsible for the cost of shipping.
Shipping
Note: Made-to-Order items typically include a lead time or custom delivery window that is added to the delivery time.
- Chairish Express In-Home Delivery
- Chairish Express In-Home deliveries are currently only offered for international cross-border shipments.
- The item will be delivered to your home and placed in the desired room. The delivery service includes unpacking, inspecting, and removing packaging materials; and does not include installation or setting up the item.
- Shipping charges start at $999 and vary based on the size, weight, packaging, and/or the value of the item.
- Deliveries can take anywhere from 6 to 9 weeks to be delivered.
- Chairish Freight Delivery
- Delivered in a crate, to your front door.
- You will need tools and/or equipment to open the crate.
- Shipping charges start at $799 and vary based on the size, weight, packaging, and/or the value of the item.
- Chairish Freight deliveries can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks.
- Only available in selected markets.
- Chairish In-Home Delivery
- The item will be delivered to your home and placed in the desired room. The delivery service includes unpacking, inspecting, and removing packaging materials; and does not include installation or setting up the item.
-
Shipping charges start at $149 and based on the size and the distance between pickup and delivery
(for approximate values see table):
Delivery Type Within 50 miles radius Within 1,500 miles radius Over 1,500 miles radius International Cross-Border Shipping Price $149 - $299 $199 - $799 $449 - $899 Over $899 Transit Time 2 to 4 weeks 3 to 6 weeks 4 to 8 weeks 12 to 17 weeks - For some items, the shipping price may vary depending on the size, weight, material and/or value of the item.
- Free Local Pickup
- Local pickup allows customers to inspect an item at the time of pickup and avoid shipping costs.
- Following purchase, a confirmation email is sent to the email address associated with the order, and includes: Pickup Verification & Seller's contact information
- Please contact the seller within 5 days to coordinate pickup
- Once the item has been picked up (by you or your representative) it cannot be returned or refunded.
- Free Shipping
- Free shipping may be offered on select listings.
- Smaller items are typically delivered within 2 weeks of the purchase date, while larger items and furniture may take up to 6 weeks for delivery.
- When an item with Free Shipping is returned, the cost of return shipping fees will be charged to the buyer.
- Parcel Delivery
- Shipment is arranged through recognized carriers such as UPS, FedEx, and DHL.
- Only pieces that can be safely packed in a box or envelope may be shipped via parcel.
- Shipping charges start at $9 — and vary based on the size, weight, packaging and the value of the item.
Delivery Type US Domestic International Cross-Border Shipping Price $9 - $99 $39 - $499 Transit Time 1 to 2 weeks 2 to 4 weeks - Seller Managed Delivery
- Shipping is offered and managed by the seller, through a shipper of the seller’s choice.
- Available on items at the seller’s discretion.
- Seller Managed Local Delivery
- Local curbside delivery is offered and managed by the seller, within a limited geography.
- Following purchase, a confirmation email is sent to the confirmation email address associated with the order, and includes: Pickup Verification Code & Seller’s contact information
- Please contact the seller within 5 days to coordinate delivery.
The Chairish Buyer Guarantee
Make an Offer
Fees and shipping costs will be calculated in the next step
Have questions about how offers work? Learn more or .
Flag this comment for moderation?