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Born in Ohio, Kitaj came to Britain in 1958, training in Oxford and at the Royal College. Surrealism and inconographical studies heavily influence his work. This painting, pronounced as if Tedium, has as its source a photograph of a production of 'No Exit' by Jean-Paul Sartre. The giant figure on the right is Goethe, who gazes out of the window. His languid stance reflects the title and refers to 'Ennui', a painting by W. R. Sickert that encapsulates human discontent.

The subject of Tedeum was partly suggested by a photograph of a scene from Jean-Paul Satre’s No Exit. The play is about three deceased people trapped in a room and they come to realise they are each other’s torturer with no escape. The small central figure in this painting with his arm raised is a reference to an anti-Nazi resistence movement called the White Rose. Behind him are the huts and chimneystack of Jewish concentration camps, an acknowledgement to the artist’s own Jewish heritage.