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Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

American, 1932-2007
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932, R.B. (Ronald Brooks) 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 draftsman 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. Among his various honors are election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982, and election to the Royal Academy in 1985 (the first American since John Singer Sargent to receive this honor.) Numerous retrospective exhibitions of his work include shows at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.; The Jewish Museum, Berlin; The Jewish Museum, London; and the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Germany. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and Troy, New York, Kitaj joined the Merchant Marines in 1949.
In 1950, between sailings, he attended classes at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York. He went on to study drawing at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, Austria. Kitaj moved to Oxford, England in 1957, and enrolled at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford. In 1959, Kitaj was accepted into Royal College of Art, London, where he befriended classmate David Hockney. Upon graduation from the RCA, Kitaj signed with Marlborough Fine Art, London, where he had his first solo exhibition in 1963. His art career began in earnest, and he found critical acclaim alongside commercial success. A second solo show followed at Marlborough Gallery, New York, in 1965, and he sold “The Ohio Gang” to The Museum of Modern Art. In 1969, Kitaj taught for a year at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1976, he coined the term “School of London” in an essay he wrote as curator of the polemical exhibition, “The Human Clay,” at the Hayward Gallery, London. The term, though loose, continues to define a group of stylistically diverse artists, including Kitaj, who were working in London at that time focusing on figural representation. In 1981, he spent a year in Paris, France, where he focused on drawing and use of pastel. In 1994, the Tate Gallery, London, organized a major retrospective of Kitaj’s work. Hostile and personal attacks from some critics led to what Kitaj referred to as the “Tate War.” The exhibition subsequently traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Kitaj moved to Los Angeles, California, and continued to exhibit with Marlborough Fine Art and the Marlborough Gallery, New York. In 2001 the National Gallery London organized a solo exhibition of paintings: “R.B. Kitaj In the Aura of Cezanne and Other Masters.” Kitaj focused on his “late style” in his Yellow Studio in Westwood and died in 2007. His gift of his archive to the UCLA Library Special Collections was celebrated with exhibitions at the Skirball Cultural Center and UCLA’s Young Research Library.
(Biography provided by Rosenbaum Contemporary)
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Period: 1970s
Artist: Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Swimmer - Screenprint (Olympic Games Munich 1972)
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in Paris, FR
Ronard Brooks KITAJ Swimmer Screen print Signature printed in the plate On heavy paper 101 x 64 cm (c. 40 x 26 inch) Made for the Olympic Games in Munich, 1972 Excellent condition
Category

1970s American Modern Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

Some do not (A) R.B. Kitaj erotic nude drawing of nude blonde with man on bed
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
An erotic dalliance between a nude blonde woman lying down, and nude man, on a bed with white sheets. Subtle shades of peach, tan, yellow, and grey and black shadow behind the couple...
Category

1970s Realist Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Lithograph

A Rash Act: erotic drawing of nude blonde, redhead, and man with art deco motifs
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
A colorful erotic daydream drawing of a nude blonde fantasizing, with a redhead woman, and man. Green and purple patterns on hair and pillows, and art deco motifs, adorn this sensual...
Category

1970s Realist Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Lithograph

BAGHDAD
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
Ronald Brooks (R.B.) Kitaj BAGHDAD, 1972 Six Color Screenprint and Photoscreenprint 20 × 14 1/2 inches Pencil signed and numbered 1/125 Printed at Kelpra Studio, London Published by ...
Category

1970s Pop Art Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

the Spirit of the Ghetto Screenprint British Pop Art RB Kitaj Judaica Silkscreen
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in Surfside, FL
R.B. Kitaj (1932-2007) Spirit of the Ghetto Original seven color silkscreen on paper Signature: Hand signed by the artist in pencil lower right Edition: From the small, limited edition of 25, pencil numbered lower right 2/25 Sight Size: 23-1/2" x 17-1/2" Frame Size: 27" x 21.5" In Tate collection, London. 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...
Category

1970s Pop Art Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

Cap'n A.B Dick (A) gray fisherman portrait sou'wester hat R.B. Kitaj lithograph
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
Kitaj’s drawing is of a fisherman in profile, wearing a sou’wester: a collapsible rain hat. The image is a wry portrait, ostensibly of Albert Blake Dick, ...
Category

1970s Realist Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Lithograph

FIRST SERIES - SOME POETS.
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in Portland, ME
Kitaj, R. B. FIRST SERIES - SOME POETS. Marlborough AG, Schellenburg, FL, 1970. Number 69 of the edition of 70 (there were about 15 additional proofs for the Artist, the Printer, and...
Category

1970s Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

In Our Time - China of Today, Print by Ronald Brooks Kitaj
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: R. B. Kitaj, American (1932 - 2007) Title: In Our Time - China of Today Year: 1970 Medium: Screenprint, signed 'RK' in pencil Edition: 150 Image Size: 18 x 23 inches Size: 22...
Category

1970s Conceptual Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

From the Lives of the Saints
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
R.B. Kitaj From the Lives of Saints, 1975 color screenprint 40 1/2 x 28 inches Edition of 70
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1970s Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

Ezra Pound II
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
Abstract male figure on silkscreen R.B. Kitaj was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932, and as a child attended art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Following his studies at Coo...
Category

1970s Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

Materials

Screen

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Previously Available Items
Some do not (A) R.B. Kitaj erotic nude drawing of nude blonde with man on bed
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
An erotic dalliance between a nude blonde woman lying down, and nude man, on a bed with white sheets. Subtle shades of peach, tan, yellow, and grey and black shadow behind the couple. Kitaj's elegant drawing tempers this shocking scene. Edgy addition to a contemporary, minimalist, or modern bedroom or living space. Paper 29 x 20.5 in. / 74.2 x 52.7 cm Lithograph on RK Burt white mould-made paper. Edition of 50: this impression 10/50. Signed by the artist and numbered 10/50 lower right in pencil. While the title states that "Some do not", some do -- and here, two lovers heighten their intimacy with a taboo sexual act...
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1970s Realist Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

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Lithograph

A Rash Act: erotic drawing of nude blonde, redhead, and man with art deco motifs
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in New York, NY
A colorful erotic daydream drawing of a nude blonde fantasizing, with a redhead woman, and man. Green and purple patterns on hair and pillows, and art deco motifs, adorn this sensual...
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1970s Realist Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

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Vintage Poster British Pop Art 1972 Munich Olympic Swimmer R.B. KItaj
By Ronald Brooks Kitaj
Located in Surfside, FL
Swimming Poster: Published and printed in Germany by Olympia Edition. signed in the plate this is not mounted to linen or backed. has never been framed. It depicts an African (African American?) Olympic Swimmer...
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1970s Pop Art Ronald Brooks Kitaj Art

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Offset

Ronald Brooks Kitaj art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Ronald Brooks Kitaj art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue, orange, purple and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Ronald Brooks Kitaj in screen print, lithograph, charcoal and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Pop Art style. Not every interior allows for large Ronald Brooks Kitaj art, so small editions measuring 14 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of John Grillo, Zane Fix, and Seymour Chwast. Ronald Brooks Kitaj art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $224 and tops out at $4,200, while the average work can sell for $1,450.

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