R.B. Kitaj,The Rise of Fascism, 1975–1979
Pastel, coal and oil on paper,
85 × 158 cm
© Collection of R.B. Kitaj Estate
4/9
“The Rise of Fascism” belongs to a series of drawings and paintings that range from the early 1970s until the mid-1980s in which Kitaj focused on the human body in all its vulnerability. In this period, he became interested in Jewish history and the Holocaust more intensely than before. At the same time, Kitaj began to work with pastels, which he used almost exclusively in this painting.
In “The Rise of Fascism,” Kitaj tries to capture the atmosphere of the growing fascism in Europe. By the unfathomably dark sea, three women wait in lascivious poses, with a bomber visible on the horizon. In this painting, like in other works of the artist, the theme of Nazism takes on erotic connotations.
Kitaj’s pictures of bathers were inspired by the pastels of Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and the figure paintings in the later works of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906).
"The three figures were originally drawn on separate sheets of paper
from women who posed for me in New York and London. Later, between 1975
and 1979, I took it into my head to make a composition. So I asked a few
other women to assume the poses that would represent the bathers in
fascist Europe. After the drawings were glued together, the images began
to change many times. The central grotesque bather is the fascist. The
bather at the left is the beautiful victim. The right hand bather is the
ordinary European watching it all happen. A bomber appears in the upper
left corner, which will cross the English Channel and bring an end to
it all one day."
from: The Tate Gallery 1978-80, Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1981
R.B. Kitaj on his painting "The Rise of Fascism" (Excerpt from the exhibition's audio guide, narrator: Peter Rigney)
