R. B. Kitaj: From Fragments: 1958–1975

With paintings, drawings and collages, R. B. Kitaj: From Fragments 1958–1975 explores the unexpected ways that Kitaj combined source imagery in the early years of his career. Many works have not been exhibited in decades and the collages, which Kitaj kept in his studio until his death, have never been shown outside the United States. In his collages and paintings of these years, Kitaj plotted fresh new paths for art. Caught between the rising tide of ephemeral imagery and the solemn hand-made gestures of abstract painters, he and his generation of artists responded with unconventional approaches. By combining obscure source images, often taken from films and old books, Kitaj found the means to make original pictures charged with personal and historical significance.

In 1958, R. B. Kitaj (1932–2007) made his first modern painting in England after he secured funding from the G.I. Bill to study art at the Ruskin School of Drawing. It was painted in the manner of Willem de Kooning and represented doodles by the humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam. With technical bravura and unrivalled breadth of imagination, in the ensuing years he proceeded to manipulate style and subject-matter as equally adaptable components in his goal to make artworks that ‘do research’.

In the early ’sixties, Kitaj began to paste collage onto his paintings. This activity encompassed an ambitious kind of modernist history painting unique to himself. Where many of his contemporaries sought inspiration from commercial mass-produced imagery and branding, Kitaj alone used imagery found in iconographical studies of the medieval and early modern periods. Sometimes imagery was transcribed and enlarged by hand; sometimes it was pasted direct from source. But a common process of working from fragments had begun to take shape. The fruit of his endeavours was exhibited to widespread acclaim in his first solo exhibition in February 1963, and Kitaj’s reputation as one of the most gifted painters of his generation was established.

In 1962, Eduardo Paolozzi introduced Kitaj to the printmaker Chris Prater. They began to collaborate on screenprints in 1964, and from this point Kitaj’s activity in papier collé was mostly confined to making collages, many of which were used as models for screenprints. Meanwhile, Kitaj continued to make paintings from fragmentary sources the combination of which gave rise to strange and beautiful images. Only when his focus shifted to life drawing in the mid-seventies did he begin to seek a more integrated, less ruptured art.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated publication that includes new research into the artist’s sources and his bricolage technique. The R. B. Kitaj Estate is represented by Piano Nobile. 

For further information and available works please contact the gallery >