What Is More Distinguished, Life or Death? What Is More Repulsive, Death or Life? was made in R.B. Kitaj’s characteristic mature style defined by stark juxtapositions of accumulated imagery and perspectives. It is composed from a series of flattened planes, which relate to each other as the inward facing surfaces of an unfolded cube. Most of the tableau is filled by a receding rectangle, the length of which is bisected by a straight, narrow strip divided by horizontal rungs. At the upper right-hand corner there is a flattened, dislocated face. Its features are simplified and smudged, characteristics that may suggest it was derived from a photographic source. The composition of these fragments was apparently a feat of improvisation in which, as William Empson wrote, ‘the author is discovering his idea in the act of writing, or not holding it all in his mind at once’. The result is a form of ambiguity. No specific meaning or narrative is apparent.

The title of the painting is provided by a faint pencil inscription in the artist’s distinctive, italic script on the canvas overlap at the back of the picture. It presumably has literary origins but its source has yet to be identified. Kitaj’s taste for esoteric modernist literature, especially that of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, may suggest any one of these authors as its source. Kitaj’s first wife Elsi (née Roessler) committed suicide in 1969 and these portentous questions related to her death: ‘What is more distinguished, life or death? What is more repulsive, death or life?’ Kitaj was asked by Julían Ríos about the face which appears in this painting:

J.R. A mist of mystery veils this Pale Face. Who is she?
R.B.K. My first wife in death.

The same face was used by Kitaj in two contemporaneous screenprints. One of these was reproduced in Ríos’s Kitaj monograph as ‘Pale Face’ and dated circa 1971. Both works were from A Day Book by Robert Creeley (1970–72), an experimental series of screenprints made by Kitaj in collaboration with Chris Prater, the printmaker and proprietor of Kelpra Studio. Examples of these prints were presented to the Tate Gallery by Prater and his wife Rose in 1975. In both cases the prints show the dislocated face in anonymous settings.

The imagery of What Is More Distinguished… also relates to a large-scale painting, Malta (for Chris and Rose), which Kitaj completed in 1974. The title refers to Kitaj’s friends Chris and Rose Prater. The collision of multiple different rooms, each with receding rectilinear structures of ceilings, walls and windows, creates a jarring pictorial space with conflicting perspectives. Both paintings apparently depict swimming pools. A calm surface of blue water in Malta (for Chris and Rose) is comparatively literal in comparison to the diffuse area of blue that occupies a central area of What Is More Distinguished…. Both paintings use the motif of receding steps viewed from an elevated, oblique angle. As with the swimming pool, these are readily apparent in Malta (for Chris and Rose) whereas they appear in What Is More Distinguished… as a dark silhouette. Owing to the similar pictorial components of these two paintings, it is plausible that What Is More Distinguished… was made while the larger painting was in gestation.

The authenticity of this painting was confirmed by the artist himself. Kitaj was shown it in 1989 at which time he confirmed that ‘it was indeed a work by him’. Kitaj could not recall ‘exactly when it was painted’ but dated it ‘at about 1970’. The painting is accompanied by two letters from Geoffrey Parton, a director of Marlborough Fine Art who was Kitaj’s artist liaison at the gallery. It was acquired by the first owner shortly after it was finished and remained undiscovered in a private family collection until 2023.