LONDON — How European a painter was Ron Kitaj (1932–2007)? Although born in Cleveland, Ohio, his ancestral roots had been definitely on the opposite facet of the water: His father was Hungarian, his grandparents Russian Jews, and his stepfather a Viennese Jew.
And by the late Fifties, he was fairly properly based mostly in London — to such an extent that he’s usually related to each British Pop Artwork (David Hockney was a detailed good friend on the Royal Faculty of Artwork) and a broader church known as The London Faculty, which included Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff.
His status prospered. Kitaj’s first present on the Marlborough was in 1963. Then, in 1994, issues went awry. A serious, career-spanning retrospective on the Tate Gallery was panned by some — although not all — London critics. Kitaj, deeply wounded, went again to the US, to reside in Los Angeles.
The final massive present of his work befell in Berlin in 2013, however its London cease wasn’t particularly properly managed; it was break up between two venues. Now he’s again in London with a brand new property administration staff — the Piano Nobile Gallery in Notting Hill — and London to Los Angeles, a considerable, largely chronological overview of round 50 work and drawings, most of them loans from establishments and personal collectors, and all assembled to re-familiarize ourselves with what he was as much as from the late Fifties on.
{The catalogue} is hefty, and the made-for-the-occasion maroon tote bag good-looking. The present is offered in two gallery areas instantly throughout the road from every different. The message is “Kitaj is again.”
Piano Nobile thinks that Kitaj can imply massive enterprise once more. Does he deserve it? Sure, by and enormous.
The Kitaj on show right here begins conventionally sufficient, with a sequence of educational determine drawings from the late Fifties. Then he shortly begins to maneuver in several instructions. The present reminds us of his friendships, the social circles via which he danced, and of his back-home hankerings, too — a portray of a brace of major-league baseball gamers known as “Stanky and Berra,” as an example. In a diptych known as “Synchrony with F.B. – Basic of Scorching Need” (1968–69) is a puffy-jowled Francis Bacon wanting like a menacingly top-hatted ringmaster presiding over a scene of visible extra. It’s a wild, collaged piece, which snatches of references, visible and literary, from right here and there. “Basic of sizzling need” is lifted from one in every of Shakespeare’s sonnets. It’s a patchy, colorfully shrieky piece of labor that virtually hangs collectively. It positively reeks of free-for-all intercourse and the ’60s.
Kitaj appreciated to make works that look as if they’re being seen via the keyhole of different works — the angle of a physique, for instance; the curiously rhapsodic leaning head of “Purple Eyes” (1980) is a straight steal from a fresco by Giotto within the Bardi Chapel in Florence. One of many most interesting items the artist ever made greets you as you enter the gallery containing the later work. It’s known as “The Architects” (1981), and the sheer thickness and density of the colour ravish the gaze. The entire is a form of extravagant layering of a number of pictures into one. All the things threatens to collapse, however lastly, right here, all of it holds.
R.B. Kitaj: London to Los Angeles continues on the Piano Nobile Gallery (96/129 Portland Highway, London, England) via January 26, 2024. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.