R.B. Kitaj Figurative Prints

R.B. Kitaj Hail thee who play (Michael McClure), 1969 Silkscreen, photo-silkscreen and collage on black textured paper 33 × 13 9/10 inches Edition 35/70 Pencil signed and numbered on...

Ronald B. (R.B.) Kitaj Nancy and Jim Dine, or O'Neill accuses Faulkner of lack of loyalty and support (Kinsman 40), 1970 16 Color Silkscreen with collage and coating on different wove papers Hand signed and numbered in pencil 29/70 on the front. The back (which is framed) bears the Kelpra Studio blindstamp Frame included: held in the original vintage metal frame Accompanied by gallery issued Certificate of Guarantee Very rare stateside. Other editions of this work are in the permanent collections of major institutions like the British museum, which has the following explanation: "The artist Jim Dine and his wife Nancy were close to Kitaj and his family, especially after the death of Elsi, Kitaj's first wife in 1969. They sometimes stayed with the Dines at their farm in Vermont during Kitaj's second teaching sojourn in the United States. Dine and Kitaj held a joint show at the Cincinnati Museum of Art in 1973. In the catalogue both artists contributed an insightful 'essay' on each other with Dine stressing Kitaj's obsession with all things American and baseball-related...' The alternate title, "O'Neill accuses Faulkner of lack of loyalty and support" can be seen on the artwork itself, and clearly is some kind of inside joke among friends. By the way -- do you see the way the colored dots are placed over the figures? Kitaj was doing this well before Baldessari who made it famous; that's how pioneering he was at the time. Referenced in the catalogue raisonne of Kitaj's prints, Kinsman, 40 Published and printed by Chris Prater of Kelpra Studio, Kentish Town, United Kingdom Ronald Brooks (RB) Kitaj Biography R.B. (Ronald Brooks) Kitaj was born in 1932 in Cleveland Ohio. One of the most prominent painters of his time, particularly in England where he spent some four decades spanning the late 1950s through the late 1990s, Kitaj is considered a key figure in European and American contemporary painting. While his work has been considered controversial, he is regarded as a master draughtsman with a commitment to figurative art. His highly personal paintings and drawings reflect his deep interest in history; cultural, social and political ideologies; and issues of identity. Part of an extraordinary cohort who emerged from the Royal College of Art circa 1960, which included Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, and David Hockney, Kitaj was immediately pegged as one of its leading figures. The London Times greeted his first solo show in 1963 as a long-awaited and galvanizing event: “Mr. R.B. Kitaj’s first exhibition, now that it has at last taken place, puts the whole ‘new wave’ of figurative painting in this country during the last two or three years into perspective.” In 1976, KItaj curated the exhibition The Human Clay, and in the essay he wrote for it he proposed the existence of a “School of London”—a label which stuck to a group of painters that includes Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, Michael Andrews...

Kitaj’s drawing on pink paper is of a man in profile, wearing a sou’wester: a fisherman’s collapsible rain hat. The image is a wry portrait, ostensibly of Albert Blake...