Philip Guston, 1913 – 1980, American born Canada
In September 2020, four museums – the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Tate Modern, London, announced that a jointly organized comprehensive survey called “Philip Guston Now” – would be postponed for 4 years.
This after the murder of the African-American, George Floyd on a Minneapolis street in May 2020. Followed by extensive demonstrations.
The presentation of Guston’s work, particularly the Klu Klux Klan imagery, needed ‘rethinking’, they said.
This decision masqueraded as a sensitivity towards public sensitivities.
Whether it was caution or cowardice, it permitted these museums to evade reference to and discussion about the violence towards minorities in our every day.
Instead, there are signs up in the museums diverting people away from Guston’s images of hooded figures in case these upset them.
In the end, the retrospective was rescheduled to begin in 2023, one year earlier than planned, after an outcry from artists; and is now on view.
The delay decision was an insult to this artist who, at the height of his career in 1970, jeopardized his career and lost his closest working relationships, to portray the truth of the cruelty and evil and isolation in the lives of so many people
from the very malicious dysfunctions the museums have cordoned off against hurt to our eyes/mind.
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1903: Philip Guston’s family were Jews. His people fled Odessa (now in the Ukraine)
1913: He was born in Montreal
1919: Guston’s family moved to Los Angeles
Self-portrait, 1944, oil on canvas.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, Canadian-American. Promised gift of Musa Mayer Guston to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
1922: Guston’s father, unable to find work and completely demoralized, hanged himself
Guston and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956, American) were schooled together in Los Angeles and became life-long friends
Guston was largely self-taught when it came to the arts. He started as a figurative artist
Here is a painting Guston completed at 17 and showed at his first exhibition, at a Hollywood bookshop
Mother and Child, c. 1930, oil on canvas.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, Canadian-American. Promised gift of Musa Mayer Guston to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
His artistic interests covered a large swath of the history of the visual arts from the High Renaissance to the modernists of the 20th century, to comic strips
He watched the Mexican muralist, Jose Clemente Orozco, at work in Los Angeles; and it is thought that he may have also assisted the muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros
1920-1970’s: the era of the Klu Klux Klan was lengthy. The Klan did not target African Americans only. They had their sights also on Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, immigrants and union members. Of this, Guston was well aware
In 1931, Guston’s older brother died in an accident
In the winter of 1931, a mural painted by Guston in Los Angeles was vandalized by the ‘Red Squad’ of the Los Angeles Police Department because it criticized the Klu Klux Klan
Female Nude with Easel, 1935, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Promised gift of the artist’s daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Although largely self-taught, Guston had mentors. One was the American surrealist, later Abstract Expressionist, Lorser Feitelson.
1934: The artist drove with friends to Mexico to paint a mural: The Struggle Against Terrorism
A portrait of injustice across history. It took inspiration from Mexican revolutionary murals
Image from the net of The Struggle against Terrorism, 1934-35. Center section of fresco at the Museo Michoacano, Morelia, Mexico
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American; Reuben Kadish, 1913-1982, American.
1936: Guston moved to New York at Pollock’s urging. He was soon in demand for murals by the Federal Arts Project
1930s and 1940s. Throughout his life, Guston remained deeply affected by the circumstances of his own family: poverty, exclusion, despair;
and by the rising social violence he witnessed.
Many of his works are of this violence, in the US and war abroad
Bombardment, 1937, as below
Drawing for Bombardment, 1937, pencil.
Promised gift by the artist’s daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Bombardment, 1937, oil on Masonite
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Philadelphia Museum of Art
Response to the bombing of Guernica, Spain.
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Portrait of Theresa Lewensohn, 1940; tempera on masonite.
Philip Guston, American born Canada, 1913-1980. Philadelphia Art Museum
Sunday Interior, 1941, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private collection loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
The rope is a reference to the artist’s father’s death; and to lynching.
Musa McKim (the artist’s wife), oil on canvas, 1942. Philip Guston, 1913-1940, American born Canada. Promised gift by their daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
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The image and murderous influence of the Klu Klux Klan was never far from the artist’s imagination
Drawing for Conspirators, 1930, graphite pencil, pen, ink, coloured pencil, waxed crayon
Philip Guston, 1913-1940, American born Canada. Whitney Museum of American Art, NY loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC in 2023
One of several works created in the context of the near lynching of nine African American young men – the Scottsbro Boys – accused of allegedly raping a white woman. They were imprisoned after a shoddy trial.
The image also evokes the suicide by hanging of the artist’s father; and depicts members of the Klu Klux Klan whose influence in the South was widespread and nefarious.
Untitled (Study for the Queensbridge Housing Project Mural), 1939, coloured pencil and ink
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Promised gift of the artist’s daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
A study for a mural on a wall of a housing project in New York which was part of a slum clearance program. Challenged at so young an age and deeply moved by the presence of these children, this work led the artist into a series of paintings of children.
Gladiators, 1940, oil and pencil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. MOMA, NY
Martial Memory, 1941, oil on canvas.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Saint Louis Art Museum loan to the National Gallery, Washington DC in 2023
A mock combat of children standing in for the torture in Piero della Francesca’s The Torture of the Jew, Arezzo, Italy. This is part of The Legend of the True Cross, 1447-1466.
If This Be Not I, 1945, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis loan to the National Gallery, Washington DC in 2023
The title is from a nursery rhyme. The children appear to have been stopped in their play onstage by something frightening; and they are afraid.
1947-1950: Philip Guston began his transition to abstraction
The following 3 are paintings of a type which Philip Guston destroyed
Performers, 1947, oil on canvas.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
There are crosses in each image. Each is claustrophobic and a move to abstraction becomes clear in the shape of the figures and the shallowness of the paintings’ ground
The Porch, 1946-47, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC in 2023
The Porch II, 1947, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC in 2023
1949: the artist, now settled in New York, joined the Abstract Expressionists, foremost among whom was his friend from school days, Jackson Pollock
The artist continued his transition to full-scale abstraction
The abstract shapes in red paint below have ingested the people and things of the world
Of this transition, Philip Guston said:
“I felt torn between loyalties. The loyalty to my own past and the loyalties to what (one) might still become.”
Tormentors, Review, and Red Painting
The Tormentors, 1947-48, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
Review, 1948-49, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
1950s: The artist continued to mature his abstract work. (He preferred the term The New York School over Abstract Expressionism)
White Painting, 1951, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art loan to National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
The first of the artist’s abstract paintings which he painted without stepping back to look at it. He wanted to forget his old habits and work in a ‘new’ way.
He relished the freedom abstraction gave him from the strictures of realism
He loved the play of paint (colour) on empty canvas
The Bell, 1952, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
To B.W.T., 1952, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Seattle Art Museum loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
The artist said that his subject was his instincts and urges:
Summer, 1953, reed pen and brush with black ink.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
Beggar’s Joys, 1954-55, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
“I didn’t know how it was going to turn out….I wanted to feel the whole field, the whole rectangle, the whole area, the whole world.”
Voyage, 1956, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 2023
Views of the gallery
Summer, 1954, oil on canvas.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, Canadian-American. Private loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
Over the next 15 years, Philip Guston became a celebrated and very successful Abstract Expressionist. He was represented by a leading art dealer, was collected by many museums, and was exhibited internationally
Painting, 1954, oil on canvas.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, Canadian-American. MOMA, NY
Painted at a time when the artist relished direct expression. He said that even the time it took between palette and canvas in the making of this work was too long for him.
View of the gallery
Fable, 1956-57, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, Canadian-American. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
Native’s Return, oil on canvas, 1957
The Phillips Collection, Washington DC loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC in 2023
The Sleeper II, 1959, oil on canvas.
Private collection loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC at an earlier exhibition
A man in bed or sleeping is an image the artist reprised again and again after he abandoned Abstract Expressionism
A year after painting the image just below, the artist expressed the tension he felt between abstraction and figuration.
He wanted to have “the courage to paint my own face…That is all a painter is, an image-maker, is he not?”
Painter, 1959, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, Canadian-American. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
Untititled, 1958-59, ink
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
Guston thought that objects resist the loss of their form. Some objects are recognizable here and some are not.
Table, 1960, oil on paper mounted on Masonite.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Baltimore Art Museum
Philip Guston’s abstract paintings vaulted him into the front rank of his peers. His abstract works were and continue to be much valued in every sense.
The artist, however, was not comfortable with this reputation
Early 1960’s: the artist, fell into depression which had never been far. He stopped painting for a year and drew
1963: when he returned to painting, his much darker palette was not well received by the art community
Later, the artist associated these paintings with the golem, a human-like being in Jewish lore; made of mud and wielding great powers both malign and benign
North, 1961-62, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. MOMA, NY
Smoker, 1963, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private art collection loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
In the gallery
Painter III, 1963, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Private collection loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
Head I, 1965, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. Tate Gallery, London, loan to the National Gallery, Washington, DC in 2023
Philip Guston, 1964, Woodstock, NY.
Dan Budnik, American, 1933-2020. Philadelphia Art Museum
In 1966, intense criticism pursuing him, Guston withdrew to his home in Woodstock, NY and took to drawing again
Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1968, acrylic on panel
Philip Guston, American born Canada, 1913-1980. Promised gift of the artist’s daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
In 1970 Philip Guston gave up abstraction
The 1960s saw massive social turmoil, and war abroad. The artist wanted to re-engage with the world.
November, 1970: Guston had an exhibition of 30 recent paintings at the Marlborough Gallery, NY which showed that he had turned completely away from Abstract Expressionism
“I got sick and tired of all that purity. Wanted,” he said, “to tell stories.
“American art,” so went his accusation,
Untitled, 1968, oil on canvas
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
“is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for a poverty of spirit…
It is an escape – from the true feelings we have – the ‘raw’ – the primitive feelings we have about the world – and us in it.
In America.”
Willem de Kooning, his fellow artist, told him that his real subject was freedom.
Bridges were blown to smithereens.
Cut off from a very powerful, exclusive art establishment and from the monies and fame which came with,
cut off from his former colleagues,
the artist left New York and returned to the questions of his young professional life:
Head, 1968, synthetic polymer paint on panel.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American-Canadian. MOMA, NY
how to witness to, how to show up the evil in an unjust world where humans are so vulnerable;
He spent the last decade of his life – 1970-1980 – on this subject.
Head II, 1969, charcoal on paper mounted to paperboard.
Philip Guston, 1913-1980, American born Canada. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
He used a cartoon style – which further defied and mystified his former colleagues and admirers – to tell the stories he felt were urgent
“There is a forgotten place of beings and things,” Guston said “which I need to remember.
“I want to see this place.
“I paint what I want to see.”