A few years after a visit to Drancy R.B. Kitaj composed this pastel drawing of the same name.

Kitaj and his second wife, Sandra Fisher, spent a year in Paris from 1982–83. There they met the Israeli painter Avigdor Arikha (1929-2010) and his wife, an American writer named Anne Atik. During his time in France, Kitaj travelled together with Anne to the former internment camp at Drancy in north-eastern Paris. From 1941 to 1944, 65,000 Jews were deported from Drancy to concentration camps in Eastern Europe.

“Drancy” and another drawing based on a photograph Kitaj took during his visit to Drancy were published by Kitaj in 1989 in a limited edition volume together with a poem by Anne Atik.

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R.B. Kitaj on his painting "Drancy" (Excerpt from the exhibition's audio guide, narrator: Peter Rigney)