As part of the Royal Drawing School's Creative Conservation series Tracey Bartley and Michael Ajerman discuss the artist's life and oeuvre and their experience of its relevance to the present day.
Tracy Bartley studied painting and art conservation, receiving a Master of Art Conservation degree from Queen's University in 1995. She has worked in Los Angeles as a project coordinator at the Getty Conservation Institute as well as an exhibition consultant for the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1999 she became the studio manager and personal assistant of R.B. Kitaj, up until his passing in 2007. She now consults with artists and collectors on collection management and legacy planning, and serves as Director of the R.B. Kitaj Studio Project and the R. B. Kitaj Estate.
Michael Ajerman studied at the Corcoran School of Art, the New York Studio School, and the Yale Summer School at Norfolk. In 2003 he completed his Masters Degree at the Slade School of Art and received the British Institute Award from the Royal Academy.
Ajerman has consistently exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows. In 2018 he was awarded UCLA's Kitaj Research Fellowship, where his scholarly and archival investigation of artists R.B. Kitaj and Walter Sickert culminated in the lecture, From Tipperary to Westwood. During the 2020 pandemic, Ajerman created the London Lockdown Lecture Series, an independent series of online art lectures.
