12 maart 2014

R.B. Kitaj #3












R.B. Kitaj's home and studio, Chelsea, London.

"Kitaj bought his five-storey Edwardian terrace house, which he describes as being of the scale of a New York brownstone, 15 years ago.
Situated in the midst of Chelsea’s studio house area, the building, which had been subdivided into bedsitting rooms, was reconverted into one dwelling by architect David Lea in 1971. This was the first of three phases of work on the house. In the first phase Kitaj made his studio on the first floor, occupying the entire north facing street frontage. The south facing adjoining room, smaller because of the stairwell, is lined on the two flank walls by bookcases constructed of inch thick vertical and horizontal timber planks. On the remaining walls small framed drawings are hung, giving the room more the atmosphere of a studio than a library.
The windows of the first-floor studio room usually have the white Venetian blinds lowered when Kitaj is at work; the room is lit by four bare fluorescent tubes framing the ceiling rose. This is where the canvasses of the early ‘70s, loaded with their impressions of settings, and the pastels, with their stark interior, were produced. Kitaj still uses it when it suits his mood.
In 1974, the second phase of work began.
...." (bron: Long & Kentish architects) (volledige artikel hier (hk))










Yellow Studio

"R.B. Kitaj (ki-TIE) coined the term “School of London” which included, Bacon, L. Freud, Kossoff, himself, and others. For the large part the group eschewed the formal tenets of modernism. Yet the artist chose me - a practitioner of its architectural vernacular - to be his collaborator to transform his Westwood garage into what he called “a little yellow house like van Gogh’s at Arles.” Kitaj sent oil paint samples from London: I did my best to match them to house paint. I provided R.B. his light as an elevated, skewed, roof, clad in zinc-coated metal that acts as a north-facing wrap-around clerestory lens. His eponymous painting of the result of our partnership is a sweet reminder of the intangible rewards that unexpectedly rise from the rigors of my own art." (bron: Callas Architects)

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