Kitaj, R. B.

Kitaj, R. B. (Ronald Brooks Kitaj), 1932–, American painter, b. Chagrin Falls, Ohio. In 1959 he moved to London, where he attended the Ruskin School and the Royal College of Art and became more closely associated with British rather than American painting. Kitaj and his friend David Hockney were both involved with the beginnings of the pop art movement in Britain. Kitaj's often sexually charged paintings are grounded in exquisite figurative drawing, their smooth surfaces splashed with areas of bright color and covered with collagelike intersecting and interlapping planes, people, and objects. His strong intellectual interests, including surrealism, art and political history, literature, and Jewish identity, are themes that run through his work. His paintings of the late 1980s and 1990s (e.g., The Wedding, 1989–90, Tate Gallery) have taken on a more personal cast. In 1997 he returned to the United States, settling in Hollywood.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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