Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is an ink print by R. B. Kitaj. It dates from 1969 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
Overview
Untitled is one of fifty screenprints from a 1969 portfolio by R. B. Kitaj, each exploring literary and cultural themes through layered imagery. This particular work serves as the cover for W. B. Yeats’s poem collection The Tower. The composition combines graphic clarity with subtle textural variation, reflecting Kitaj’s interest in integrating literary references into visual form.
Subject & Meaning
Behind it, simplified dwellings and a striped border suggest a tension between the individual and the collective, the mystical and the mundane.
The image depicts a stark, vertical tower with narrow windows, evoking Yeats’s symbolic structure of isolation and artistic endurance. Surrounding the tower is a sinuous, organic form resembling tangled roots or branches, contrasting with the rigid architecture. Behind it, simplified dwellings and a striped border suggest a tension between the individual and the collective, the mystical and the mundane.
Technique & Style
Kitaj employed screenprinting with selective collage elements to achieve a sharp, high-contrast aesthetic. Bold black outlines define forms, while areas of flat color—green and beige stripes in the border—add rhythmic structure. The layered textures suggest hand-applied inks and paper fragments, lending the print a tactile precision that balances industrial reproduction with artisanal detail.
History & Provenance
Created in 1969, this print was part of a limited portfolio produced to accompany Yeats’s The Tower. It entered the collection of The Museum of Modern Art shortly after its release, where it remains as part of a broader archive of Kitaj’s book-related works. The portfolio reflects the artist’s engagement with mid-century literary modernism and the resurgence of illustrated poetry in print culture.
Context
In the late 1960s, Kitaj was deeply immersed in literary modernism, drawing connections between visual art and poetry. This print emerged alongside a broader revival of artist-designed book covers, particularly in Britain and the U.S. His use of symbolic architecture and geometric framing aligns with contemporaneous movements that sought to merge narrative with formal abstraction in printed media.
Legacy
Kitaj’s portfolio of screenprints, including this Untitled work, influenced later artists interested in the intersection of literature and graphic design. Its restrained palette and symbolic density contributed to a renewed appreciation for the book as an art object. The piece endures as a quiet but deliberate dialogue between visual form and poetic tradition.
Artist & collection
Artist
Ronald Brooks Kitaj was an American artist who spent much of his life in England.
