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On a scale that is just bigger than life-size, R. B. Kitaj thrusts an old man's face into the canvas; it is full to the edges of quick, bright white dabs of beard, broad pinky cheeks, an eyebrow raised, nostrils glowering above a clamped mouth. The face is in close-up, cropped to isolate it from an immediate context or identifiable associations. In this way, Kitaj plays on the likeness between an old Sigmund Freud and the prophet Moses, supposed to have to have lived to the age of 120. One great Jewish teacher faces another, each channeling a white-haired splendour. Ever confrontational, Kitaj is addressing the fact of his own final years, filtering personal existence through collective history. Since the 1980s Kitaj had been vociferous about his place, as an outsider, in the Jewish Diaspora (to this end, he wrote two manifestos, a conscious echo of Modernism).
Title
Moses Contra Freud
Date
2005
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 21.5 x W 28 cm
Accession number
P8199
Acquisition method
given by Lem and Dana Kitaj, 2009
Work type
Painting
Inscription description
INSCRIBED CANVAS TURNOVER TOP: MOSES CONTRA FREUD SIGNED TOP LEFT CANVAS TURNOVER: KITAJ 05