R.B. Kitaj: In Our Time: R. B. Kitaj and Books

“You might say that books have meant to me what trees mean to a landscapist” – R. B. Kitaj, 1965

In Our Time: R. B. Kitaj and Books explores the artist’s appreciation of books as visually potent and for their capacity to generate myriad associations.

The exhibition presents Kitaj’s complete portfolio, rarely exhibited in its entirety, of fifty silkscreen prints, created between 1969 and 1970, titled In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part.

Acquired by The Dorsky in 1979, the prints are based on book covers, dust jackets, and other publication elements, primarily of items in Kitaj’s extensive personal library. Seen together, they form a dense field of references spanning art, film, literature, photography, politics, personal history, and more. In Our Time is a story of the histories of books, the biases books bear witness to, the process of collecting them, and their influences.

Kitaj created In Our Time while located in Los Angeles, in collaboration with London-based printmaker Chris Prater. This mode of international exchange is in keeping with Kitaj’s broader interest in the movement of people, ideas and cultural materials across borders. Both the technical processes behind the screenprints and their visual references reflect this interest in what Kitaj later termed “Diasporist.”

Several of the publications Kitaj used as models for his prints are included in the exhibition, offering unique insight into his working processes. These items were acquired with the support of a SUNY New Paltz Faculty Development Center Teaching Innovation Award.

Included as a coda to the exhibition is Forced Omission, a series of paintings by contemporary artist Daria Irincheeva comprised of approximate reproductions of books by authors persecuted in the Soviet Union during the mid twentieth century. Irincheeva’s paintings echo Kitaj’s prints in their concern with the intertwined histories of culture, persecution, and exile.

In Our Time is curated by SUNY New Paltz Professor of Art History Reva Wolf in collaboration with students from her fall 2025 course, Printmaking, Books, and R. B. Kitaj. The students worked directly with the Kitaj portfolio and have contributed to the interpretation and presentation of the works on view. The exhibition is the culmination of a learning experience grounded in close looking and sustained research.

In Our Time is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog featuring essays by Wolf, nine students, Associate Professor of Graphic Design Anne Galperin, Librarian Stephan J. Macaluso, and Daria Irincheeva. The catalog is funded in part through the generous support of the Resnick Institute for the Study of Modern Jewish Life.

Forced Omission is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, through the sponsorship of Unison Arts & Learning Center in New Paltz, New York.