Mid Century Unknown Portrait, New York
Unknown artist, charcoal & watercolor on paper, mounted in a shadow box wood frame. I love the pin holes in the corners, and an actual boot print on it. Measures 28.5 inches width x 35 inches height x 1.25 inches depth. Purchased in New York in the early nineties (when I had NO money) in a church basement sale, sold directly from some adorable nuns who were trying to hustle me, which was amazing. They tried to convince me that this was a portrait of Francis Bacon, done by an unknown friend of his. I love a good hustle. Or could it be true?
Private Collection of Guy Berube.
Asking USD$1850
Possibly attributed to:
R.B. Kitaj was an American artist known for his expressive, figurative works that playfully depict contemporary life, art historical references, and sexuality. Using an array of aesthetic styles he merged the collage techniques of Pop Art with the agitated brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism. Fascinated by his family’s Viennese and Russian-Jewish heritage, Kitaj introduced the narratives, self-analysis, and Judeo-Christian mysticism embedded in the early 20th-century literature of Franz Kafka and Walter Benjamin into his art practice. Born Ronald Brooks Kitaj on October 29, 1932 in Chagrin Falls, OH, he spent his early adulthood as a seaman for a Norwegian freighting company, followed by a short stint in the US Army. Kitaj went on to study at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna, the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, and finally at the Royal College of Art in London. Kitaj would spend much of the rest of his life in England, where he became close friends with the artist David Hockney and the philosopher Richard Wollheim. Kitaj tragically took his life at the age of 74 on October 21, 2007 in Los Angeles, CA. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Tate Gallery in London, among others.
MORE RESEARCH:
R.B. KITAJ
(Cleveland 1932 – Los Angeles 2007)
Portrait of Philip Roth
775 x 570 mm. (30 1/2 x 22 1/2 in.)
RECENTLY ACQUIRED BY THE STÄDELSCHES KUNSTINSTITUT UND STÄDTISCHE GALERIE, FRANKFURT.
Drawn in London in 1985, soon after Roth and Kitaj first met, the present sheet was, according to Kitaj, done in ‘about six sessions’. Loaned from the artist’s collection, the drawing was included in Kitaj’s retrospective exhibition at the Tate Gallery in 1994, which later travelled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Despite the generally poor reviews for the exhibition as a whole, the present sheet was singled out for praise by several critics. (One noted that ‘Works like…a magnificent portrait of Philip Roth seemed to me the strongest works in the show.’) Among comparable large-scale portrait drawings by Kitaj is a study of Lucian Freud of 1991, which was hung alongside the present sheet at the 1994 retrospective exhibition, and is today in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Another portrait drawing of Philip Roth by Kitaj, drawn several years later, was, like the present sheet, retained by the artist until his death. Drawn in charcoal on canvas and entitled A Jew in Love (Philip Roth), the drawing remains in the collection of the Kitaj estate.
https://www.stephenongpin.com/object/790570/18216/portrait-of-philip-roth
R.B. KITAJ
1932 —
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States
2007 —
Died in Los Angeles, California, United States
Education
1950-51 —
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, New York, United States
1951-52 —
Academy of Fine Art, Vienna, Austria
1957-59 —
Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
1959-61 —
Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
Selected Solo Exhibitions 2019 —
R.B. Kitaj: Collages and Prints, LA Louver Gallery, Los Angeles, California, United States
2018 —
R.B. Kitaj: A Jew Etc., Etc., Oregon Jewish Museum, Portland, Oregon, United States Kitaj A Catalunya, Galeria Richard Vanderaa, Girona, Catalonia
2017 —
R.B. Kitaj: The Exile at Home, Marlborough Contemporary, New York, New York, United States R.B. Kitaj: Prints, Marlborough Graphics, New York, New York, United States
2015 —
R.B. Kitaj: A Survey 1958 – 2007, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
2012-13 —
Obsessions: R.B. Kitaj 1932-200, Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany; travelled to Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, Pallant House, Chichester, United Kingdom; Jewish Museum, London, United Kingdom
2012 —
R.B. Kitaj, Galería Marlborough, Madrid, Spain
Marlborough
2011 —
R.B. Kitaj: Portraits and Reflections, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, United Kingdom
2010-11 —
R.B. Kitaj’s Covers for a Small Library, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, United States
2008 —
Portrait of a Jewish Artist: R.B. Kitaj in Word and Image, organized by UCLA
Center for Jewish Studies, Charles E. Young Research Library, Los Angeles,
California, United States
R.B. Kitaj: Passion and Memory: Jewish Works from his Personal Collection, Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California, United States
2007 —
Kitaj: Little Pictures, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
2005 —
R.B. Kitaj: How to Reach 72 in a Jewish Art, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States
2004 —
Kitaj: Retrato de un Hispanista, Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao, Spain
2003 —
R. B. Kitaj: Los Angeles Pictures, 1998-2003, L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, California, United States
2002 —
R. B. Kitaj: A Survey of his Printmaking 1964-2001, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, United Kingdom
2001-02 —
Kitaj, In the Aura of Cézanne and Other Masters, National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2000 —
R.B. Kitaj, How To Reach 67 in Jewish Art, Galeria Marlborough, Madrid; travelled to; Marlborough Gallery, New York, United States of America
1998 —
R.B. Kitaj, An American in Europe, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway;
travelled to Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Spain, Jüdisches Museum de Stadt Wien, Vienna, Austria; Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany
1996 —
Sandra Two, FIAC 1996, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France
1995 —
R.B. Kitaj, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, United States
1994-95 —
R.B. Kitaj: Recent Pictures, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
Marlborough
Retrospective Exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom; travelled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, United States
1990-91 —
R.B. Kitaj, Mahler Becomes Politics, Beisbol, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany
1986 —
R.B. Kitaj, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States
1985 —
R.B. Kitaj, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
1981 —
R.B. Kitaj, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C, United States; travelled to Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, United States; Städtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, Germany
1980 —
Kitaj: Pastels and Drawings, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
1979 —
Drawings, Pastels and Oil Paintings, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States
1978 —
R.B. Kitaj, Beaumont-May Gallery, Hopkins Center, Hannover, New Hampshire, United States R.B. Kitaj, FIAC, Grand Palais, Paris, France
1977 —
R.B. Kitaj: Graphics, Icon Gallery, Birmingham, United Kingdom
R.B. Kitaj: Pictures, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom; travelled to Marlborough Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland
1976 —
R.B. Kitaj: Mala Galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia
1975 —
R.B. Kitaj: Pictures, New 57 Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
1974 —
R.B. Kitaj: Pictures, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States
1973 —
R.B. Kitaj, In Our Time, 1969-1973, Amerika Haus, Berlin, Germany
1971 —
Kitaj, Graphics Gallery, San Francisco, California, United States
1970 —
Overbeck Gesellschaft, Lübeck, Germany; travelled to Städtisches Kunstmuseum,
Bonn, Germany
R.B. Kitaj: Pictures from an Exhibition, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany; travelled to
Marlborough
Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands, Marlborough New London, United Kingdom
1969 —
R.B.Kitaj: Complete Graphics 1963-1969, Galerie Mikro, Berlin, Germany; travelled to Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany; Galerie van de Loo, Munich, Germany; Galerie Niepel, Dusseldorf, Germany
1967 —
Work of Ron Kitaj, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, United States
Kitaj: Tekeningen en Seriegrafiën, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands R.B. Kitaj, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States
1965 —
R.B. Kitaj: Paintings, Marlborough Gerson Gallery, New York, New York, United States
R.B. Kitaj: Paintings and Prints, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, United States
1963 —
R.B. Kitaj: Pictures with Commentary, Pictures without Commentary, Marlborough New London Gallery, United Kingdom
Selected Group Shows
2019-20 —
The Expressionist Figure: The Miriam and Erwin Kelen Collection of Drawings, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
2019 —
Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud & The School of London, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
Friends and Influences, Ben Uri Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2018 —
All Too Human: Bacon Freud and a Century of Painting, Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom; travelled to Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary
Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition, Manchester Art Gallery, United Kingdom POP! Art in a Changing Britain, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, United Kingdom
Kabbalah, Jüdisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
2017-18 —
Bacon, Freud and the School of London, Museo Picasso, Malaga, Spain; travelled to ARoS, Aarhus, Denmark
London Painters, Ordovas Gallery, New York, New York, United States
2017 —
London Calling: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Andrews, Auerbach, and Kitaj, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, United States
Marlborough
2007 —
El Espejo y la Máscara, El Retrato en el Siglo de Picasso, Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain; travelled to Fundación Caja Madrid, Spain; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, United States
2005 —
Modern Masters, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
Landscape – Cityscape, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States
2000 —
Elogio de lo Visible, International Figuration Exhibition, Galeria Marlborough, Madrid, Spain; travelled to Centro Cultural Las Claras, Murcia, Spain; Centro Cultural Casa del Cordon, Burgos, Spain; Cultural Rioja, Logroňo, Spain
1998 —
Pop Art Spirits: Masterpieces from the Ludwig Collection, Cologne, Germany
1990-91 —
Chagall to Kitaj, Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art, Barbican Art Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1988-89 —
Gallery, Golem, Danger, Deliverance and Art, Jewish Museum, New York, New York, United States
1989 —
New Paintings, Auerbach, Bacon and Kitaj, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom
1880-1989 —
School of London: Works on Paper, Odette Gilbert Gallery, Scotland, United Kingdom
1985 —
A Singular Vision: Paintings of the Figure by Contemporary British Artists, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, United Kingdom; travelled to Milton Keynes Gallery, United Kingdom; Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, United Kingdom; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, United Kingdom; South London Art Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1982 —
A New Spirit in Painting, Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom
Artist in Focus, International Association of Art, UNESCO, Paris Groups IV, Waddington Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1980 —
The Artist’s Eye: An Exhibition Selected by R.B. Kitaj, National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1979 —
Lives: An Exhibition of Artists Whose Work is Based on Other People’s Lives, Serpentine Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Verbiage: An Exhibition of Words, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, United Kingdom
1977 —
Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Marlborough
British Painting 1952-1977, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom
Englische Kunst der Gegenwart, Bregenz-Künstlerhaus, Palais Thurn und Taxis, Frankfurt, Germany
Papier sur nature, Festival d’automne à Paris 77, Fondation Nationale pour les Arts Graphiques et Plastiques, Paris, France
1974 —
Contemporary British Painters and Sculptors, Lefevre Gallery, London, United Kingdom Mini-Retrospective of Graphics by Eduardo Paolozzi, Victor Pasmore, Tom Phillips, R. B. Kitaj, Fünfte Internationale Kunstmesse Basel, Switzerland
Masterpieces of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Marlborough Fine Art, London, United Kingdom Fourth British International Print Biennale, Bradford City Art Gallery and Museum, United Kingdom British Painting ’74, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1971 —
A Selection of 20th Century British Art, Marlborough London Gallery, United Kingdom
Grafiek van Gene Davis, R.B. Kitaj, E. Paolozzi, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Information: Tilson, Phillips, Jones, Paolozzi, Kitaj, Hamilton, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland
Pop Art, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom
The Gosman Collection: Forty-five Paintings from the Collection, University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, United States
09 Obras de Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1970 —
Zeitgenossen: Das Gesicht unserer Gesellschaft im Spiegel der heutigen Kunst, Städtische Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany
Kelpra Prints, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Keuze uit de Verzameling van het Stedelijk Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands XXXV Biennale, Venice, Italy
Pop Art, Nieuwe Figuratie, Nouveau réalisme, Gemeentelijk Casino, Knokke, Belgium Contemporary British Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Inaugural Exhibition: 19th and 20th Century Art from Collections of Alumni and
Friends, Elvehjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States
3-x: New Multiple Art, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1967 —
Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, United States of America
Aanwinsten uit het Stedelijk, Groninger Museum, Groninger, Netherlands
1964-65 —
Guggenheim International Award 1964, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, United States of America; travelled to; Honolulu Academy of Arts; Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany; National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, United States of America; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Study for an Exhibtion of Violence in Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom Painting and Sculpture of a Decade 54-64, Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Marlborough
1962 —
John Moores Exhibition 1961, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom
1961 —
Young Contemporaries 1961, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
Recent Developments in Painting IV, Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, United Kingdom
The John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 1961, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom
1960 —
Young Contemporaries 1960, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
1958 —
Young Contemporaries 1958, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
Awards/Residencies
1999 —
Honorary Doctorate, Spertus Institute of Jewish Learning and Leadership, Chicago, Illinois, United States
1997 —
Wollaston Award to the best painting in the Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy of Arts, London
1996 —
Awarded Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Republic of France Honorary Doctorate, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
1995 —
Honorary Doctorate, California College of Arts, Oakland, California, United States Golden Lion for Painting, Venice Biennale, Italy
1991 —
Honorary Doctorate, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
1984 —
Elected Royal Academician, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom
1982 —
Honorary Doctorate, University of London, United Kingdom Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Selected Books and Exhibition Catalogs
2017 —
R.B. Kitaj, Confessions of an Old Jewish Painter, Eckhart Gillen (ed.), (Munich: Prestel Publishing, 2017)
Marlborough
2013 —
Jennifer Ramkalawon, Kitaj Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné (London: British Museum Press, 2013)
2010 —
March Livingstone, Kitaj, 4th edition (London: Phaidon, 2010)
2007 —
Cill Kugelman, Eckhart Gillen and Hubertus Gassner. Obsessions: R.B. Kitaj 1932-2007, Jüdisches Museum, Berlin, exh.cat. (Bielefeld: Kerber, 2012)
2000 —
Critical Kitaj: Essays on the Work of R.B. Kitaj, James Aulich and John Lynch (eds.), (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000)
1998 —
R.B. Kitaj: An American in Europe, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, exh.cat. (Hannover: Sprengel Museum, 1998)
1994 —
Richard Morphet (ed.), text by Richard Morphet and Richard Wollheim, R.B. Kitaj: A Retrospective, Tate Gallery, exh.cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 1994)
1989 —
R.B. Kitaj, First Diasporist Manifesto (London: Thames & Hudson, 1989)
1981 —
John Ashbery, Jane Livingstone and Joe Shannon, R.B. Kitaj, Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, exh.cat. (Smithsonian Institute Press, 1981)
Public Collections
Arts Council of England, London, United Kingdom
Ashmolean Museum of Art, Oxford, United Kingdom
Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo, Norway
British Museum, London, United Kingdom
Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, United States Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, Germany
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, United States
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, United States
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, United States
Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany
National Portrait Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California, United States Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Marlborough
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, United States Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom
Mr RB Kitaj at the opening of Mr David Hockney’s show at the Kasmin Gallery, London, 1969. Photograph by Mr Homer Sykes
A latecomer to the British painting party, Mr RB Kitaj was born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, in 1932, and reached the Ruskin School in Oxford in 1958. A brilliant draughtsman, he had his first one-man show at the Marlborough in 1963, after a spell at the Royal College of Art, where he became a lifelong friend of Mr David Hockney. He and Mr Hockney later led a campaign for a return of the study of the human figure in art schools.
Initially associated with pop art, he turned to the figurative, and it was the figurative he lauded in the catalogue for a 1976 exhibition, The Human Clay, highlighting the work of Messrs Bacon, Andrews, Auerbach et al. (Messrs Hockney, Freud and Auerbach can be seen among the guests in Mr Kitaj’s “The Wedding”, painted between 1989 and 1993, which celebrated his marriage to the artist, Ms Sandra Fisher.)
Ferociously well-read, he attached long, name-packed captions to the work he showed at his 1994 Tate retrospective. He was savaged by the London critics, and the criticism coincided with the death of his mother, at whose US bedside he was when he learned of the death of Ms Fisher, from a brain aneurysm. “My enemies,” he said, “intended to hurt me, but they got her instead.”
Acutely conscious of his Jewish identity, he revered Mr Franz Kafka; the building at the back of his “If Not, Not” (1975-1976) is the gatehouse to Auschwitz. Suffering from Parkinson’s, he took his own life in 2007.