If Not, Not

American-born R. B. Kitaj spent the most influential years of his painting career in England, where he settled in 1958. He was a member of a group of artists at the Royal College of Art in London that promoted pop art. Kitaj was controversial for his outspokenness in favor of figurative art. Among his most important exhibitions was a Tate Gallery retrospective in 1994. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1991, the first American to earn this honor in almost a century. In 1995, he received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale.