Wednesday 29 February 2012

R. B. Kitaj - part 1

R. B. Kitaj was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932. He studied at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York from 1950 to 1951, at the Academy of Fine Art, Vienna from 1951 to 1952, at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford from 1953 to 1959 and at the Royal College of Art, London from 1959 to 1961. Kitaj went on to teach at Camberwell School of Art from 1962 to 1966 and at the University of California, Berkeley from 1970 to 1971. He was Artist in Residence at Dartmouth College, USA from 1978 to 1979.

Kitaj’s first solo show was held at the Marlborough New London Gallery in 1963. This quickly led to a succession of solo exhibitions throughout the world including the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York (1965), Cleveland Museum of Art (1967), the Icon Gallery, Birmingham (1977) and FIAC, Paris (1978). He continued to exhibit regularly with Marlborough Fine Art in London, New York and Zurich. Retrospectives of his work were held at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in 1981 and at the Tate Gallery, London in 1994. His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions.

Kitaj was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982. He also received Honorary Doctorates from the University of London, the Royal College of Art and Durham University in 1982, 1991 and 1996 respectively. He received the Golden Lion for Painting at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and in 1997 won the Wollaston Award for the most distinguished work in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. In 1996 he was nominated Chevalier des Arts and des Lettres by the French Government. Kitaj was elected Royal Academician in 1991 (ARA in 1984), and in 1997 moved to Los Angeles after receiving bad reviews of his 1994 Tate retrospective.

Kitaj controversially accused newspaper critics of driving his wife to her death, then took his own life in 2007. One of his last exhibitions was called Draw Draw Is Better Than Jaw Jaw. Personally I think he was a great artist deserving of a better memorial.

All images © The Estate of R. B. Kitaj

This is part 1 of a 4-part post on the works of American artist R. B. Kitaj:


1958 Erasmus Variations 
oil on canvas 104.9 x 84.2 cm

1960 The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg 
oil and collage on canvas 153 x 152.4 cm

1962 Do You Know the Country? 
oil on canvas 121.9 x 121.9 cm

1962 Isaac Babel Riding with Budyonny 
oil on canvas 182.9 x 152.4 cm

1963-64 Dismantling the Red Tent 
oil and collage on canvas 121.92 x 121.92

1964 Apotheosis of Groundlessness 
oil on canvas

1964 The Ohio Gang 
oil and graphite on canvas 183.1 x 183.5 cm

1964 Where the Railroad Leaves the Sea 
oil on canvas 48 x 60 in

1965 World Ruin through Black Magic 
serigraph 63.5 x 83.8 cm

1965 World Ruin through Black Magic 
serigraph 64.8 x 92.7 cm

1966 Pogany 
screenprint 61 x 91.4 cm

1966 Portrait of Walter Lippman 
oil on canvas

1966 Truman in the White House 
screenprint 55.6 x 79.7 cm

1966-70 Charles Olson 
screenprint

1966-70 Ed Dorn 
screenprint

1966-70 Kenneth Rexroth 
screenprint

1966-70 Revolt on the Clyde (Hugh McDiarmid) 
screenprint

1966-70 Star Betelgeuse (Robert Duncan) 
screenprint

1967 Civic Virtue 
screenprint 53.3 x 66.2 cm

Monday 27 February 2012

Albert Bierstadt - landscape painter - part 3

This is part 3 of a 3-part post on the works of Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902). Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. 
For biographical notes see part 1. For more works by Bierstadt see parts 1 and 2.


1889-90 Sunrise at Glacier Station 
oil on canvas 76 x 112 cm

c1889 Alaskan Coast Range 
oil on paper 35 x 49 cm

c1890 Mount Sir Donald, Asulkan Glacier 
oil on canvas 71 x 51 cm

1891 Island of New Providence 
oil on paper 46 x 61 cm

1895 The Morteratsch Glacier, Upper Engadine Valley, Pontresina 
oil on canvas 97 x 152 cm

1900 The Golden Gate 
oil on canvas 97 x 152 cm

Approaching Thunderstorm on the Hudson River 
oil on paper

Bavarian Landscape 
oil on canvas

Deer at Sunset 
oil on paper 36 x 50 cm

Evening Glow, Lake Louise, Rocky Mountains, Canada

In Western Mountains 
oil on canvas 22 x 30 cm

Indian Encampment

Kern's River Valley, California 
oil on canvas 90 x 132 cm

Lake Tahoe Spearing Fish by Torchlight

Landscape

Mountainous Landscape

Nevada Falls, Yosemite

Old Faithful

On the Saco

Staubbach Falls near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Study for Yosemite Valley Glacier Point Trail

Sunset in the Rockies

Sunset on the Coast

Sunset on the Mountain

Sunset over a Mountain Lake

Sunset over the River

View of the Grindelwald

Saturday 25 February 2012

Albert Bierstadt - landscape painter - part 2

This is part 2 of a 3-part post on the works of Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902). Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. For biographical notes and earlier works by Bierstadt see part 1.


1869 Ferns and Rocks on an Embankment 
oil on board 49 x 34 cm

1869 The Oregon Trail 
oil on canvas 79 x 124 cm

The Oregon Trail is another version of Bierstadt's earlier work 'Emigrants Crossing the Plains' from 1867 (see in part 1).


c1869 Shady Pool, White Mountains, New Hampshire 
oil on paper 56 x 77 cm

1870 Storm in the Mountains

c1870 Fir Trees and Storm Clouds 
oil on paper 35 x 47 cm

c1870 Sunrise, Yosemite Valley 
oil on canvas

1871 Western Landscape

1871-3 San Francisco Bay 
oil on paperboard 35 x 46 cm

1871-3 Sierra Nevada 
oil on canvas

c1871-3 Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite 
oil on canvas 92 x 67 cm

1872 Sunrise in the Sierras 
oil on paper 34 x 48 cm

c1872 Cathedral Rocks, a Yosemite View 
oil on paper 48 x 35 cm

c1872 Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley 
oil on paper 36 x 51 cm

c1872 Indians in Council, California 
oil on canvas 40 x 56 cm

1873 Liberty Cam, Yosemite 
oil on paper

1873 Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point Trail 
oil on canvas 137 x 215 cm

1873-4 Kings River Canyon, California

1875 Hetch Hetchy Canyon 
oil on canvas 130 x 106 cm

after 1875 Autumn Woodland 
113 x 88 cm

after 1875 Sunrise on the Matterhorn 
oil on canvas 149 x 108 cm

after 1878 After a Norther, Bahamas 
oil on canvas 139 x 215 cm

c1880-88 By a Mountain Lake (Lake in the Grand Tetons) 
oil on canvas 77 x 112 cm

c1880-93 West Indies Coast Scene 
oil on paper 36 x 49 cm

c1880 Moose Hunter's Camp 
oil on canvas

1881 Lower Yellowstone Falls 
oil on paper

c1882 Gates of the Yosemite 
oil on paper 36 x 51 cm

1886 Autumn Woods 
oil on canvas