About

R.B. Kitaj suffered from a self-diagnosed case of ‘bibliomania’. His thirst for reading and acquiring books was unquenchable. In 1965, an interviewer asked if he considered reading time a necessary part of his working method—he agreed that it was. Much of his time was spent in book shops where he made friends with book dealers and poets, who were perennially the subject of his paintings.

In his series of screen prints, In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part, Kitaj adopted as a subject some books he was interested by. Plotted onto an expanse of neutral white …