After a lifelong career as a central figure in the London art scene, the American-Jewish artist R. B. Kitaj (1932–2007) left England in 1997 for Los Angeles to be “in exile,” as he named it, following a series of tragic events that he believed had caused the sudden death of his beloved wife and muse, artist Sandra Fisher (1947–1994). In Los Angeles, he continued the mission he had assigned himself long before: to create a meaningful, new Jewish art. For Kitaj, Jewish art was a “Diasporist” art—that is, a modernist, universal art whose core lies in the experience of the artist living and working in multiple societies simultaneously, and a response to being Heimatlos (“homeless”). He formulated his thoughts in two manifestos (1988/1989 and 2007), which were followed in 2017 by his posthumously published autobiography, Confessions of an Old Jewish Painter. Around 2003, Kitaj’s perception of Sandra Fisher attained a more mystical level: in addition to angelic qualities, he began to assign divine qualities to her as the personification of the Shekhina, the feminine aspect of God, to whom he could cleave as a mystic through his art while painting his Los Angeles series. In his final years, his personal devotion focused entirely on his reunion with Sandra. In this, mystical ideas about the Shekhina offered Kitaj a vehicle for his thought and art as well as a means of transition from earthly existence to death.

经过一生的职业生涯，成为伦敦艺术界的中心人物，美国犹太裔艺术家RB Kitaj（1932-2007）于1997年离开英格兰前往洛杉矶，以“流亡”的名字命名，之后经历了一系列悲剧他认为这件事导致了他心爱的妻子和缪斯女画家桑德拉·费舍尔（Sandra Fisher，1947-1994年）的突然死亡。在洛杉矶，他继续了很久以前分配给自己的任务：创造一种有意义的新犹太艺术。对于Kitaj而言，犹太艺术是一种“散居主义”艺术，即一种现代主义的普遍艺术，其核心在于艺术家同时在多个社会生活和工作的经历以及对成为Heimatlos（“无家可归”）的反应。他用两份宣言（1988/1989年和2007年）阐述了自己的思想，随后在2017年出版了遗腹的自传《老犹太画家的自白》。Kitaj在2003年左右对桑德拉·费舍尔（Sandra Fisher）的理解达到了一个更高的神秘水平：除了天使般的品质外，他还开始赋予她神圣的品质，作为神的女性面Shekhina的人格化，他可以通过神秘化的方式向其分裂。他在绘画他的洛杉矶系列作品时的艺术。在他的最后几年，他的个人献身精神完全集中在与桑德拉（Sandra）的重逢上。在这方面，关于Shekhina的神秘思想为Kitaj提供了思想和艺术的载体，也是从尘世生存到死亡的过渡手段。。