R. B. Kitaj in the Aura of Cezanne and Other Masters

For almost four decades, R.B. Kitaj played an integral role in British art. His enigmatic and highly personal paintings engage with contemporary culture, his Jewish identity and horror of the Holocaust. Shortly after his controversial retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London in 1994, he moved back to his native United States and now lives and works in Los Angeles. His great hero is Cezanne: “He is my greatest painter of all and the three last Bathers are my favourite art of all”. He recently embarked upon a series of six major new pictures inspired by Cezanne’s Bathers for an exhibition at the National Gallery, London. In this fully illustrated book, Kitaj’s new paintings are reproduced for the first time, together with a series of beautiful black chalk drawings, directly inspired by Cezanne. The new paintings are discussed in the context of earlier works by Kitaj, which reveal his constant preoccupation with the Old Masters. The book includes a short essay about Kitaj’s work, plus a new and previously unpublished interview with the artist.