Screenprint on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Mahler Becomes Politics, Beisbol
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/r-b-kitaj-1416" aria-label="More by R.B. Kitaj" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">R.B. Kitaj</a>
Heart
Purchased 1970
adults
electrical appliances
emotions, concepts and ideas
fan
formal qualities
group
groups
inscriptions
lifestyle and culture
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
man
musical analogy
objects
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photographic
printed text
reading, writing, printed matter
sheet music
society
symbols and personifications
Williams, Jonathon, ‘Mahler’
woman
paper print screenprint
Heart
image: 601 × 813 mm
Purchased 1970
<p><b>R B Kitaj</b> b. 1932
<br/><b>P07053</b>	[from] MAHLER BECOMES POLITICS, BEISBOL 1964–7 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kitaj-what-is-comparison-p07045" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07045</span></a>-<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kitaj-the-flood-of-laymen-p07059" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07059</span></a>]
<br/>Screenprints.
<br/>Purchased from Marlborough Fine Art Ltd (Grant-in-Aid) 1970.</p>
<p>(ix) Heart (as in ‘he has heart’) 1966
<br/>Inscribed ‘30/70 Kitaj’, b.l.
<br/>23⅝×35 (60×81.5)</p>
<p>The fifteen <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/screenprint" title="Glossary definition for 'Screenprint'"><span>screenprints</span></a> which comprise <i>Mahler Becomes Politics, Beisbol</i> are contained in a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portfolio" title="Glossary definition for 'Portfolio'"><span>portfolio</span></a>. In addition to the fifteen <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a>, the portfolio contains three further items:</p>
<p>a. a book, <i>Mahler</i> by Jonathan Williams. 44 pages long and published in 1966, it is a book of poems which are, in the author's words, ‘exercises in spontaneous <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> to the movements of all the Mahler symphonies’. Each poem refers to a particular symphony. Reproduced on the cover of the book is a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> of Jonathan Williams by R B Kitaj.</p>
<p>b. a sheet of coloured patterned <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> measuring 30¼×20½ (77×52) onto which is stuck a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photograph</span></a> of R B Kitaj and Jonathan Williams, taken at Biggar, Lanarkshire, during a visit to Hugh McDiarmid in 1965.</p>
<p>c. a further sheet of paper 30¼×20½ (77×52), in a different coloured pattern, to which are stuck four printed sheets, each of a different size, one in each corner. They read as follows:</p>
<p><i>Top left:</i>	The title of the series.
<br/><i>Top right:</i>	'A run of 15 screen prints by R. B. Kitaj 1964/67.</p>
<p> 	'Each print is in an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/edition" title="Glossary definition for 'Edition'"><span>edition</span></a> of 70, numbered and signed.</p>
<p>'The first 30 sets are in a portfolio together with the book of poems by Jonathan Williams, first published here in an edition of 30, numbered and signed by the author.</p>
<p>	'Screen prints printed by Kelpra Studios on various papers.</p>
<p> 	'The case has been made by F &amp; J Randall, London.</p>
<p>	‘The edition has been published by Marlborough Fine Art Ltd London 1967.’</p>
<p><i>Bottom left:</i> 	'The title of the frontispiece photograph [see (b) above].
<br/>	‘Americans Abroad; Biggar, Lanarkshire 1965’ and the title of each of the screen prints.</p>
<p><i>Bottom right:</i>	‘Bob Creeley said it would have been better if Jonathan had done Charles Ives—better for me that is...’</p>
<p>The artist told the compiler (conversation, 1 July 1970) that the initial impulse to make this series of prints came from his friendship with Jonathan Williams and from Williams's Mahler poems.</p>
<p>By the time he had been working on the series for two years, and had still not completed it, Kitaj became bored with Mahler and with the convention of having to finish a series of prints in the same spirit in which it had been begun. The title of the series, deliberately echoing a title such as <i>Mourning becomes Electra</i> indicates, by referring to factors which are polar in their contrast, the range of involvement and association which became part of the originally simple concept.</p>
<p>‘Beisbol’ is a phonetic rendering of the pronunciation south of the United States border of ‘baseball’.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1968-70</i>, London 1970</p>
<p></p>
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Catalogue entry
2004-10-11T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults electrical appliances emotions, concepts and ideas fan formal qualities group groups inscriptions lifestyle and culture literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) man musical analogy objects people photographic printed text reading, writing, printed matter sheet music society symbols and personifications Williams, Jonathon, ‘Mahler’ woman