R. B. Kitaj, Where the Railroad Leaves the Sea, 1964, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid — image used for commentary and educational purposes

First impressions

I first came across R. B. Kitaj (pronounced Kit-eye) at Hong Kong Art School, when a lecturer brought in a richly illustrated book. My History of Art degree hadn’t taken me much beyond WWII, but this didn’t feel new so much as different. What struck me immediately was the strength of colour, the architectural structure of the work, and the ease with which he moved between painting, drawing and printmaking — a quiet level of competence and craftsmanship that avoids tipping into display or virtuosity for its own sake.

It’s hard to think of many artists where this movement across media feels so fully absorbed into the work, rather than presented as skill. It felt like a distinct voice. He remains an artist I return to.

Background and position

Kitaj was an American with Jewish roots who went to England to study and stayed for 35 years. He was associated with the British pop art movement and, indeed, had an influence on it. However, his strong love of figurative painting, coupled with an academic interest in the history of art, made him — as with David Hockney — unfashionable at a time when pure abstraction and minimalist aesthetics ruled the day.

Alongside Patrick Caulfield and Ridley Scott, Kitaj first met Hockney at the Royal College of Art (1959–61) in London. Hockney became a lifelong friend and supporter of Kitaj, and support was something the painter couldn’t have too much of in 1994, the year of his first major retrospective at the Tate.

Criticism and backlash

What should have been a proud, lifetime achievement was destroyed by the critics. The attacks were both brutal and personal, and not solely from the likes of the acerbic and elitist Brian Sewell. Andrew Graham-Dixon, one of my all-time favourites, weighed in, calling Kitaj “a small man with a megaphone pressed against his lips.” I remember finding that surprising at the time — not because critics can’t be savage, but because it felt so pointed.

The “vicious” assassination, as Hockney described it, could not realistically have been a comment on Kitaj’s artistic output. A year later, the artist received the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale (1995), where Robert Hughes (author of The Shock of the New) commented that he drew better than almost anyone alive.

It seems more likely that the critical hostility arose from the lengthy written explanations Kitaj provided — on the advice of the then Tate director. Perhaps the critics felt that words and explanations were their domain, or they simply disliked the sometimes large and unpleasant ego that Kitaj could project in his writing.

R. B. Kitaj — Smyrna Greek (Nikos), 1976–1977, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Image used for commentary and educational purposes.

Aftermath

Whatever the reasons, in many ways Kitaj never really recovered emotionally. His wife, Sandra Fisher, who had been heavily involved in the setting up of the Tate retrospective, died two weeks after the show opened from brain damage. Kitaj blamed the critics, returned to the USA, and took his own life in 2007.

Separating artist and work

I don’t believe you have to like an artist to admire their work. If racism, misogyny, immorality — and the occasional over-bearing ego — were to decide an artist’s role in history then most by now would be “cancelled” and the art history books very empty indeed. The same thing could be said of art critics too.

However, it’s a more complicated question now than it once was.

R. B. Kitaj, Drancy, 1984–86, pastel and charcoal on paper, 39 × 30¾ in., Jewish Museum Berlin, Berlin — Image used for commentary and educational purposes

A few thoughts

It’s worth considering the role of writing in a painter’s practice. Kitaj saw painting as “a great idea [he carried] from place to place / like a refugee’s suitcase”. Reading and writing were central to both his life and his work.

The question is not whether the writing was good or bad, but what it does. At what point does explanation begin to direct the work too heavily, or close down interpretation rather than open it?

It’s something I’ve gone back and forth on over time.

Questions to consider

■ As artists, how much do you want to explain your work — and at what stage?

■ Does writing alongside your work help clarify what you’re doing, or does it risk fixing meaning too early?

Suzanne Valadon, The Blue Room, 1923 (oil on canvas). Public domain.

First encounter

In 1996, while living in Switzerland, I visited an exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny. It was a retrospective of Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938), and I was struck by the power of her work.

Despite having an MA in History of Art, I had not come across Valadon before. More broadly, I realised how unfamiliar I was with many female painters of that period.

Better-known contemporaries include Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. Both had to fight hard within the male-dominated world of Impressionism. Morisot is quoted as saying that all she wanted was to meet a man who treated a woman as an equal. Yet both Morisot and Cassatt came from relatively wealthy backgrounds and benefited from private tuition. Their entry into the art world, while far from straightforward, was more supported than Valadon’s.

Valadon’s beginnings were very different. The illegitimate daughter of a laundress, she was raised in far less stable conditions. She showed an early ability to draw, using whatever came to hand, including coal. By around the age of fifteen, she was working as a circus acrobat, a profession she is said to have loved.

But a fall put paid to this career, and she became — as many vibrant and beautiful women of her time did — an artist’s model. She modelled for painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, moving within the artistic circles that would later shape her own work. Her personal life was equally complex. Her son, Maurice Utrillo — himself a painter — was widely thought to have been fathered by one of several artists in her circle before being recognised by the Spanish painter Miquel Utrillo.

What is striking is that Valadon did not remain a passive presence within that environment. She absorbed what she could, learned through observation and gradually shifted from model to artist.

In her work — particularly in her treatment of the figure — there is a robustness and directness that set it apart. The use of colour is often more assertive, and there is a grittiness that feels absent not only in the work of Morisot and Cassatt but also in that of many of their male contemporaries. There is little idealisation. The figures feel present rather than arranged.

Despite periods of difficulty, including an attempted suicide, there is a sense that she did not dwell on her circumstances. From early on, she was ambitious to be recognised as an artist in her own right. She absorbed what she learned as a model and, coupled with a strong and determined personality, developed a distinctive visual language — particularly evident in her treatment of the nude.

Suzanne Valadon, Self-Portrait, 1898 (oil on canvas). Public domain.

In her words:

“I had great masters. I took the best of them, of their teachings, of their examples. I found myself, I made myself, and I said what I had to say.”

Valadon was not an artist whose life ended in obscurity. Her work was exhibited at major salons, including the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, and in 1924 she secured a significant contract with the Parisian dealer Bernheim-Jeune.

A few thoughts

Valadon offers much for consideration. She clearly had natural ability, but without formal training it was her tenacity — and her ability to learn through observation and experience — that carried her through.

She did not follow a defined path into the art world. Instead, she worked from within it, gradually shifting her position and building something of her own. There is a level of independence in that which is not imposed, but developed over time.

Questions to consider

What carries more weight over time — natural ability or persistence?

How much do you rely on structure e.g. courses and workshops to improve, and how much comes from what you choose to explore on your own?