Well known Washington artist Kitty Klaidman was selected as an artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2001/ 2002. It was there, that she began the series of paintings that form her third solo exhibition, at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery.

Kitty Klaidman has said, "these works are the product of eleven weeks in Rome and a lifetime of looking at objects in an attempt to see more than meets the eye". Her sources of inspiration were the densely colored and richly textured ancient walls of Rome, which Leonardo da Vinci once described as a limitless source of imagery.

Using acrylic wash on panels or paper, Kitty Klaidman achieves fresco like surfaces. For many people, these images will convey a reference to landscape. The artist has indicated "the paintings... are meant to be evocative, not symbolic".

Kitty Klaidman has always worked in series. She is perhaps best known for her series of paintings referring to memories of her childhood in Czechoslovakia, during the Holocaust. She was honored with a retrospective of her work at the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Washington DC, in 2003. Her work has also been included in two important traveling museum exhibitions: "Witness and Legacy" and "After Auschwitz: Responses to the Holocaust in Contemporary Art". The latter also traveled to major museums throughout Europe.