American, 1932-2007

In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the most Part, 1969

Serigraph Prints

29.5″ – 21″

The Brooklyn College Library Collection

Kitaj’s screen-printed images of book covers represent a random sampling of actual ones from the artist’s eclectic, beloved library. Although born in Ohio, Kitaj traveled extensively, and studied with the London School of figurative painters such as David Hockney. In this series, Kitaj reveals the influence of Dada, and Marcel Duchamp’s notion of the “Readymade”: an everyday object declared a work of art by an artist. Kitaj’s book covers also suggest Andy Warhol’s commercial appropriations. Kitaj later referred to these prints as ” …my soup can, my Liz, my electric chair.”