R. B. Kitaj
Smyrna Greek (Nikos) | 1977
Oil on canvas
243.8 x 76.2 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/ficha_obra/408 |
| | “I like the idea that it might be possible to invent a figure, a character, in a picture the way novelists have been able to do,” Kitaj once confessed. The literary roots of his painting are particularly evident in Smyrna Greek (Nikos), not only because the figures are two poets, but because the scene tells a story. The artist gave a brief explanation of the present work in the catalogue of his exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London in 1994: “This portrait of my friend Nikos Stangos was inspired by his fellow Greek poet Cavafy, who described his daily walk past the brothels in the port of Alexandria. I had just returned to London from my only trip to Greece, which lasted very few days and while he posed for me in that walking position, I told Nikos about my bizarre and unconsummated wandering down the port of Piraeus, as if in imitation of Cavafy. So the painting is about the two poets and me.” Paloma Alarcó http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/ficha_obra/408 |
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