R.B. Kitaj

R.B. Kitaj: London to Los Angeles explores the relationship between Kitaj’s art and the places where he lived. This is the first significant publication about the artist in over a decade and provides a chronological overview of Kitaj’s career. Published to accompany Piano Nobile’s exhibition of the same title, it includes 43 paintings and drawings with catalogue entries containing original research, in many cases presenting new information about Kitaj's sources and sitters for the first time.

The book contains three essays, which describe the artist's lives in London and Los Angeles. Andrew Dempsey recounts Kitaj’s relationship with artists, institutions and art critics during his thirty-eight-year period in London. Colin Wiggins, who worked with Kitaj on his National Gallery exhibition in 2001, writes about the artist’s last decade in Los Angeles. Marco Livingstone in his essay remembers the long correspondence he shared with Kitaj. A further section includes extended excerpts from Kitaj’s letters to Livingstone, which are now held by the Tate Archive and are published here for the first time.