Andrew Lambirth (and indeed myself) were not among those who had just about had enough of Kitaj’s successive stances. He and I, and many others, saw much to applaud, not least an idiosyncratic conduct of line and colour and a piquant use of clippings from art and life. Brief but pointed, the antidote to mindless disparagement, Lambirth’s Kitaj is a handsome picture book with minimal text beyond an interview conducted by email.
‘Are there any good critics active at the moment?’ Lambirth asks. ‘The ones who find me interesting are best.’ ‘Do you still think of yourself as a “grandchild of Surrealism”?’ This being an email from half a world away, Kitaj has time to frame a dignified response. But no, in the blink of a satellite-relayed internet SEND he falls in with his younger self and lobs the ball back with almost a laugh.
‘Yes, sort of Symbolist-Surrealist Diaspor- ist Bastard of Modernism.’
The last bit is vintage Kitaj: the one- time sailor and ex-GI talking like Papa Hemingway in insensitive mood. It’s also Kitaj slotting himself into raunchy tradition, giving himself loads of self-assembled antecedent to harp on. He has been writing his memoirs, I hear. No living painter is better qualified to be his own Vasari.
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