Exhibition previews: RB Kitaj: Obsessions – Analyst for our Time, until June 16 2013; Laetitia Yhap: Fishermen of Hastings Stade, until April 7, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester

Reams could be added to the deluge already written about RB Kitaj’s demise. After his 1994 Tate show was attacked by critics – somewhat brutally, it is fair to say, in some quarters – the painter, whose wife died within two weeks of the opening, returned to America.

His story from then until his suicide in 2007 is lengthily documented. But despite the overarching tragedy, Pallant’s exhibition of more than 50 paintings, sketches and prints should perhaps be recognised more for its emergence as the first major retrospective of his diverse career.

Kitaj was scholarly when it came to art history, creating brushwork and collages reflecting European politics, philosophy and literature, depicting David Hockney (his closest friend in art) and producing studies of the body and sexuality with names such as Self-Portrait as a Woman and The Sensualist.

In an exhibition running concurrently with the Jewish Museum and touring from its equivalent in Berlin, some of them, including a portrait of Philip Roth, called A Jew in Love, illustrate his later embrace of Judaism. It’s certain to be compelling, even if its underlying story is one to regret.

Laetitia Yhap, meanwhile, studied life drawing under another of Kitaj’s allies, Frank Auerbach, at Camberwell and Slade Schools of Art during the 1950s and 1960s.

She turned against figurative drawing for several years before her decision to portray an East Sussex fishing community. A selection of the drawings and paintings from the series, spanning 20 years, appear here.

• Open 10am-5pm (8pm Thursday, 11am-5pm Sunday and Bank Holidays, closed Monday). Admission £3.50-£9 (family ticket £21.50). Follow the gallery on Twitter @PallantGallery.

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