R.B. Kitaj (ki-TIE) coined the term “School of London” which included, Bacon, L. Freud, Kossoff, himself, and others. For the large part the group eschewed the formal tenets of modernism. Yet the artist chose me - a practitioner of its architectural vernacular - to be his collaborator to transform his Westwood garage into what he called “a little yellow house like van Gogh’s at Arles.”
Kitaj sent oil paint samples from London: I did my best to match them to house paint. I provided R.B. his light as an elevated, skewed, roof, clad in zinc-coated metal that acts as a north-facing wrap-around clerestory lens. His eponymous painting of the result of our partnership is a sweet reminder of the intangible rewards that unexpectedly rise from the rigors of my own art. – B. Callas