ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Latest editorial
Doing something for Jews
CHRISTINE LINDEY surveys the cosmopolitan, enigmatic compositions of an idiosyncratic artist whose work speaks of mystery and exile
(L) Synchromy with F.B. - General of hot desire (1968-69); (R) Besht Imaginary Portrait of The Baal Shem Tov (1987)
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
R B Kitaj
Piano Nobile, London
AN outsider, who would forever define himself as such, R B Kitaj was born in 1932 in Cleveland, Ohio as Ronald Brooks. The following year his Hungarian father left his Jewish-American mother Jean, and she reared her child alone while working as a secretary and as a school teacher.
In 1941 she married Dr Walter Kitaj, a Viennese Jew and her son adopted his stepfather’s surname. The family moved to Troy, upstate New York in 1942 and by 1950 the young Kitaj escaped small-town life to become a sailor on cargo ships until 1954, during which time he read avidly.
Thus began what would remain an enduring and restless quest for adventure, learning and travel, all the while drawing and reading avidly.
More from this author
CHRISTINE LINDEY welcomes a fascinating survey of the work of the communist and socialist artists who founded the AIA in the 1930s
CHRISTINE LINDEY guides us through the vivid expressionism of a significant but apolitical group of pre WWI artists in Germany
CHRISTINE LINDEY salutes an outstanding exhibition imbued with a sense of national guilt
