Painting Exile: R. B. Kitaj, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff

“The novelty of our time [is] that so many individuals have experienced the uprooting and dislocations that have made them expatriate and exiles.” The words of Edward Said encapsulate the widely-held view that exile was emblematic of the modern world. This talk will focus  upon three artists featured in the exhibition ‘Out of Chaos’ at the Laing Art Gallery in 2016-17: Frank Auerbach, R.B. Kitaj and Leon Kossoff. They were loosely grouped under the label the ‘School of London.’ Focusing especially upon the works featured in the exhibition, this talk will explore the different ways that exile is represented, imagined or displaced through each artist’s particular vision; and how that vision might have been shaped by their individual historical circumstances.

Stephen Moonie is a Lecturer in Art History in the Department of Fine Art, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University. He is an expert on modernist painting and criticism, especially in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s. He teaches widely across many areas of art history, and has published on various aspects of modern art and art criticism in recent years. He is currently interested in the legacy of the critical debates of the 1960s and the current role of art criticism.