Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplished abstraction," and is now regarded as one of the "most important, powerful, and influential American painters of the last 100 years." He frequently depicted racism, antisemitism, fascism and American identity, as well as—especially in his later most cartoonish and mocking work—the banality of evil. In 2013, Guston's painting To Fellini set an auction record at Christie's when it sold for $25.8 million. Guston was a founding figure in the mid-century New York School, which established New York as the new center of the global art world, and his work appeared in the famed Ninth Street Show and in the avant-garde art journal It is. A Magazine for Abstract Art. By the 1960s, Guston had renounced abstract expressionism and was helping pioneer a modified form of representational art known as neo-expressionism. "Calling American abstract art 'a lie' and 'a sham,' he pivoted to making paintings in a dark, figurative style, including satirical drawings of Richard Nixon" during the Vietnam War as well as several paintings of hooded Klansmen, which Guston explained this way: "They are self-portraits … I perceive myself as being behind the hood … The idea of evil fascinated me … I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan." The paintings of Klan figures were set to be part of an international retrospective sponsored by the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2020, but in late September, the museums jointly postponed the exhibition until 2024, "a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston's work can be more clearly interpreted." The announcement spurred an open letter, published online by The Brooklyn Rail and signed by more than 2,000 artists. It criticizes the postponement and the museums' lack of courage to display or attempt to interpret Guston's work, as well as the museums' own "history of prejudice". It calls Guston's KKK themes a timely catalyst for a "reckoning" with cultural and institutional white supremacy, and argues that that is why the exhibition must proceed without delay. On October 28, 2020, the museums announced earlier exhibition dates starting in 2022.
Wikidata
Q701952
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
He attended the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles 1927-1928, followed by the Otis Art Institute, 1930. He was expelled from Otis after three months, but it was there that he began his friendship with Jackson Pollock. From this period on Guston was self-taught. After a figurative period, in the manner of Mexican mural artists, Guston became involved in the development of American Abstract Expressionism. In 1968 he made a radical return to figuration, waiting until 1970 to reveal this work publicly. These new cartoon-like works were not well-received when first shown, but have become highly regarded over time.
Nationalities
American, Canadian
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Engraver, Lithographer, Muralist, Painter
Names
Philip Guston, Phillip Goldstein, Philip Goldstein
Ulan
500023901
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

106 works online

Exhibitions

Publications

  • MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art Flexibound, 408 pages
  • MoMA Now: Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art—Ninetieth Anniversary Edition Hardcover, 424 pages
  • Among Others: Blackness at MoMA Hardcover, 488 pages
  • Being Modern: Building the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 288 pages
  • Abstract Expressionism at The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 128 pages
  • Philip Guston in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition catalogue, Paperback, pages
  • The Drawings of Philip Guston Exhibition catalogue, Clothbound, 184 pages
  • The Drawings of Philip Guston Exhibition catalogue, Paperback, 184 pages
Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].