{{Short description|Canadian-American painter and printmaker (1913–1980)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2023}} {{Infobox artist | name = Philip Guston | image = Philip Guston at a mural.jpg | image_size = 250px | alt = Profile of the artist | caption = Guston in 1940 | birth_name = Phillip Goldstein | birth_date = {{Birth date|1913|6|27}} | birth_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada | death_date = {{death date and age|1980|6|7|1913|6|27}} | death_place = Woodstock, New York, US | style = Cartoon, Abstract | movement = Abstract expressionism, Neoexpressionism, figurative painting, New York School | spouse = Musa McKim | patrons = David McKee | field = Painter, graphic artist, muralist, printmaker | training = Los Angeles Manual Arts High School, Otis Art Institute | signature = Signature of Philip Guston, 1969.JPG }}
'''Philip Guston''' (born '''Phillip Goldstein''', June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian and American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplished abstraction,"<ref name="Greenberger-2020">{{Cite news|last=Greenberger|first=Alex|date=September 30, 2020|title=Philip Guston's KKK Paintings: Why an Abstract Painter Returned to Figuration to Confront Racism|url=https://www.artnews.com/feature/philip-gustons-kkk-paintings-history-meaning-1234572056/|website=Artnews}}</ref> and is now regarded as one of the "most important, powerful, and influential American painters of the last 100 years".<ref name="Saltz-2020">{{Cite news|last=Saltz|first=Jerry|date=October 1, 2020|title=4 Museums Decided This Work Shouldn't Be Shown. They're Both Right and Wrong. Fear postponed a Philip Guston retrospective. A reckoning must follow.|work=New York |url=https://www.vulture.com/2020/10/museums-decided-philip-gustons-work-shouldnt-be-seen-why.html}}</ref> 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 US$25.8 million.<ref name="Artobserved-2013" />
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,<ref name="Jacobs-2020">{{Cite news|last=Jacobs|first=Julia and Jason Farago|date=September 25, 2020|title=Delay of Philip Guston Retrospective Divides the Art World|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/arts/design/philip-guston-exhibition-delayed-criticism.html}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 27, 2020|title=Sense or censorship? Row over Klan images in Tate's postponed show|url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/26/sense-or-censorship-row-over-klan-images-in-tates-postponed-show|access-date=October 4, 2020|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref> 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."<ref name="Jacobs-2020" /><ref name="www.nga.gov">{{Cite web|title=Philip Guston Now|url=https://www.nga.gov/press/exh/5235.html|access-date=October 3, 2020|publisher=National Gallery of Art}}</ref>
The announcement spurred an open letter, published online by ''The Brooklyn Rail'' and signed by more than 2,000 artists.<ref name="Schwendener-2020">{{Cite news|last=Schwendener|first=Martha|date=October 2, 2020|title=Why Philip Guston Can Still Provoke Such Furor, and Passion|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/arts/design/guston-painter-career.html?action=click&block=more_in_recirc&impression_id=5407f7b0-0546-11eb-b24f-1d2376f58b61&index=0&pgtype=Article®ion=footer}}</ref><ref name="Google Docs">{{Cite web|title=Open Letter: On Philip Guston Now|url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVXTB30hp2oNz1Vm4P8jpXgg4sIieWNbdaqWqffHcN4/edit?usp=embed_facebook|access-date=October 3, 2020|via=Google Docs|language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Google Docs" /> On October 28, 2020, the museums announced earlier exhibition dates starting in 2022.<ref name="Artforum-2020" />
== Biography == === Early years === The child of Ukrainian Jewish parents who escaped the persecution of pogroms by immigrating to Canada from Odessa, Guston was born in Montreal in 1913 and moved to Los Angeles in 1919.<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> The family were aware of the regular Ku Klux Klan activities against Jews and Blacks which were taking place across California.<ref name="Marmer-2020" /> In 1923, possibly owing to persecution or the difficulty of securing an income, his father hanged himself in the shed, and the young boy found the body.<ref name="Philip Guston-2015">{{cite web|date=May 9, 2015|title=Philip Guston|url=https://art.famsf.org/philip-guston|access-date=September 14, 2016}}</ref>
Guston's interest in drawing led his mother to enroll him in a correspondence course from the Cleveland School of Cartooning.<ref name="Philip Guston-2015" /> In 1927, at the age of 14, Guston began painting and enrolled in the Los Angeles Manual Arts High School, where he met Jackson Pollock, who became a lifelong friend.<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> The two studied under Frederick John de St. Vrain Schwankovsky and were introduced to European modern art, Eastern philosophy, theosophy and mystic literature. The pair later published a paper opposing the high school's emphasis on sports over art, which led to expulsions, although Pollock eventually returned and graduated.<ref name="americanart.si.edu">{{Cite web|title=Philip Guston |publisher=Smithsonian American Art Museum|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/philip-guston-1994|access-date=October 4, 2020|language=en-US}}</ref>
Apart from his high school education and a one-year scholarship at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles,<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> which left him dissatisfied, Guston remained a largely self-taught artist, influenced by, among others, the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, whom Guston repeatedly acknowledged throughout his career.
=== Work ===
==== Political murals ==== {{Multiple image | align = left | direction = vertical | total_width = 300 | image1 = Archives of American Art - Philip Guston - 3027.jpg | alt1 = | caption1 = Guston sketching a mural for the WPA Federal Art Project in 1939. | image2 = Archives of American Art - Philip Guston - 3028.jpg | caption2 = Philip Guston painting another Federal Art Project mural in 1940 (photograph by Sol Libsohn). | header = }} As an early activist, in 1932, the 18-year-old Guston produced an indoor mural with the artist Reuben Kadish in an effort by the communist-affiliated John Reed Club of Los Angeles to raise money in support of the defendants in the Scottsboro Boys Trial, in which nine Black teenagers were falsely accused of a rape in Alabama and sentenced to death."<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> The mural was then defaced by local police forces, organized into violent anti-communist Red Squads.<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> The subsequent court ruling found no fault on the part of the L.A. police, even though irreversible damage was sustained to many works of art.
In 1934, Philip Goldstein (who had not yet changed his name to Guston)<ref>Aaron Rosen, ''Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston, and Kitaj'' (MHRA, 2009; {{ISBN|978-1-906540-54-8}}), p. 50: "In the mid-1930s the artist began, off and on, to use the surname 'Guston' in place of his inherited name of 'Goldstein'".</ref> and Kadish joined their friend the poet Jules Langsner on a trip to Mexico, where they were commissioned to paint a {{convert|1,000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} mural on a wall in the former summer palace of the Emperor Maximilian in the state capital of Morelia. They produced the impressive ''The Struggle Against Terror'', whose antifascist themes were clearly influenced by the work of David Siqueiros.<ref name="Boime-2008">{{cite journal |last=Boime |first=Al |date=2008 |title=Breaking Open the Wall: The Morelia Mural of Guston, Kadish and Langsner |jstor=40479800 |journal=The Burlington Magazine |volume=150 |issue=1264 |pages=452–459}}</ref> The mural "includes the hooded figures that became a lifelong symbol of bigotry for the artist."<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> The mural was covered up as it was considered undesirable by the Church; it was rediscovered years later, deteriorated, and later underwent a long restoration and was put on public view in 2025.<ref>{{cite news| last=Graham | first=Thomas | title=Long-lost anti-fascist mural from 1930s restored and back on show in Mexico |newspaper=The Guardian | date=January 31, 2025 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/31/philip-guston-mural-mexico}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Victoria Burnett |date=February 1, 2025 |title=Restored Anti-Fascism Mural by Philip Guston Unveiled in Mexico |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/arts/design/philip-guston-mural-mexico.html}}</ref>
A two-page review in ''Time'' magazine quoted Siqueiros's description of Guston and Kadish: "the most promising painters in either the US or Mexico."<ref name="Boime-2008" /> In Mexico Guston met and spent time with Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera.{{Citation needed|date=September 2016}} In 1934–35, Guston and Kadish completed a mural, still on display, at City of Hope Medical Center, a tuberculosis hospital at the time, in Duarte, California, US.{{Citation needed|date=September 2016}}
==== WPA murals ==== In September 1935, aged 22, Guston moved to New York, where he worked as an artist in the WPA program during the Great Depression. In 1937, he married the artist and poet Musa McKim, whom he first met at Otis, and they collaborated on several WPA murals. During this period his work included strong references to Renaissance painters such as Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Masaccio, and Giotto. He was also influenced by American Regionalists and Mexican mural painters.<ref name="Greenberger-2020" /> In 1938 he painted a post office mural in the US post office in Commerce, Georgia, entitled ''Early Mail Service and the Construction of Railroads.'' In 1943, he completed a mural entitled ''Reconstruction and Well-Being of the Family'' for the Social Security Building (today known as the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building) in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Mural by Philip Guston that Moves! |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_1D6iXXxdE |website=YouTube |publisher=GSA (General Services Administration) |access-date=10 December 2025}}</ref> As of December, 2025, the latter mural was under threat of demolition.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Noah |first1=Timothy |title=Can the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal” Be Saved From Trump? Precious murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, and others are even more endangered than we knew. |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/204201/trump-bulldoze-new-deal-murals |publisher=The New Republic |access-date=10 December 2025}}</ref>
==== Abstract expressionism ==== {{Multiple image | align = | direction = vertical | total_width = 280 | image1 = "Zone" abstract painting by Philip Guston.jpg | alt1 = | caption1 = ''Zone'', 1953–1954, oil on canvas, The Edward R. Broida Trust, Los Angeles | image2 = 'Cherries III' by Philip Guston, Honolulu Museum of Art.JPG | caption2 = ''Cherries III'', 1976, oil on canvas, Honolulu Museum of Art | header = Abstract expressionism and Neoexpressionism }}In the 1950s, Guston achieved success and renown as a first-generation abstract expressionist,<ref name="Marmer-2020">{{Cite journal|last=Marmer|first=Jake|date=October 2, 2020|title=The Artist Formerly Known as Guston|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/philip-guston-canceled-show|journal=Tablet}}</ref> although he preferred the term ''New York School''. During this period his paintings often consisted of blocks and masses of gestural strokes and marks of color floating within the picture plane, as seen in his painting ''Zone'', 1953–1954. These works, with marks often grouped toward the center of the composition, recall the "plus and minus" compositions of Piet Mondrian or the late ''Nymphea'' canvases by Monet.
Guston used a relatively limited palette, favoring black and white, grays, blues and reds. It was a palette that would remain evident in his later work, despite Guston's attempts to expand his palette and reintroduce abstraction to his work late in life, as evidenced in some of his untitled work from 1980 that has more blues and yellows.
==== Neoexpressionism ==== In 1967, Guston moved to Woodstock, New York. He was increasingly frustrated with abstraction and began painting representationally again, but in a personal, cartoonish manner.<ref name="Greenberger-2020" /> "It disappointed many when he returned to figuration with aplomb, painting mysterious images in which cartoonish-looking cups, heads, easels, and other visions were depicted against vacant beige backgrounds. People whispered behind his back: "He's out of his mind, and this isn't art," curator Michael Auping said. "He could have ruined his reputation, and some people said he did."<ref name="Greenberger-2020" /> The first exhibition of these new figurative paintings, including ''The Studio'', ''Blackboard'', and ''City Limits'', was held in 1970 at the Marlborough Gallery in New York.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Philip Guston |url=https://www.gustoncrllc.org/home/exhibitions/1160 |access-date=2023-07-16 |publisher=The Guston Foundation |language=English}}</ref> It received scathing reviews from most of the art establishment.<ref name="Greenberger-2020" /> Memorably, ''New York Times'' art critic Hilton Kramer ridiculed Guston's new style in an article entitled "A Mandarin Pretending to Be a Stumblebum",<ref name="Kramer-1970">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/25/archives/a-mandarin-pretending-to-be-a-stumblebum.html |title=A Mandarin Pretending To Be A Stumblebum |first=Hilton |last=Kramer |date=October 25, 1970 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> referring to "mandarin" in the sense of an influential figure and "stumblebum" meaning a clumsy person.<ref name="Kramer-1970" /> He called the act of changing styles an "illusion" and an "artifice". The initial reaction of Robert Hughes, critic for ''Time'' magazine, who later changed his views, was put into a scathing review entitled "Ku Klux Komix".<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943281,00.html|title=Art: Ku Klux Komix |magazine=Time |first=Robert |last=Hughes |date=November 9, 1970}}</ref>
According to Musa Mayer's biography of her father in ''Night Studio'', the painter Willem de Kooning was one of the few who instantly understood the importance of these paintings, telling Guston at the time that they were "about freedom."<ref>Mayer, Musa, Night Studio (Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 157</ref> ''Cherries III'' from 1976, held in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of his late-style representational paintings. Although cherries are a mundane subject, their spiky stems can be a metaphor for the crudeness and brutality of modern life.<ref name="Honolulu Museum of Art">Honolulu Museum of Art, wall label, ''Cherries III'' by Philip Guston, 1976, oil on canvas, accession 7008.1</ref>
As a result of the poor reception of his new figurative style, Guston isolated himself even more in Woodstock, far from the art world that had so utterly misunderstood his art.<ref name="Marmer-2020" />
In 1960, at the peak of his activity as an abstractionist, Guston said, "There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art. That painting is autonomous, pure and for itself, therefore we habitually analyze its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is 'impure'. It is the adjustment of 'impurities' which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Balken |first1=Debra Bricker |last2=Philip |first2=Guston |last3=Berkson |first3=Bill |date=1994 |title=Philip Guston's poem-pictures |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nQdYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22miserly+in+the+myth+we+inherit+from+abstract+art%22 |location=University of Michigan |publisher=Addison Gallery of American Art |page=34 |isbn=978-1-879886-38-4 |author-link3=Bill Berkson}}</ref> From 1968 onward, after moving away from abstraction, he created a lexicon of images such as Klansmen, light bulbs, shoes, cigarettes and clocks.<ref name="Marmer-2020" /> In late 2009, the McKee gallery, Guston's long-time dealer, mounted a show revealing that lexicon in 49 small oil paintings on panel painted between 1969 and 1972 that had never been publicly displayed.
A ''catalogue raisonné'' of the artist's work was compiled by the Guston Foundation in 2013, coinciding with recent scholarly interest that explored the periods he spent in Italy.<ref>{{cite web|title=Features |publisher=American Academy in Rome|url=http://www.aarome.org/news/features/the-academy-welcomes-peter-benson-miller-as-the-new-andrew-heiskell-arts-director}}</ref>
== Legacy == === Public collections === *Art Institute of Chicago *Detroit Institute of Arts *Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection (Albany, NY) *High Museum of Art *Honolulu Museum of Art,<ref name="Honolulu Museum of Art" /> *Metropolitan Museum of Art *Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) *Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth *National Gallery of Art *Tate Modern *Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
In 2022, Guston's daughter, Musa Mayer, made a promised gift of 96 paintings and 124 drawings from her personal collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art;<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-12-14 |title=The Met Announces Transformative Gift of 220 Works by Philip Guston from the Collection of Musa Mayer—the Largest Single Collection of Works by the Important American Artist - The Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/press-releases/philip-guston-gift-2022-news |access-date=2025-07-04 |website=www.metmuseum.org |language=en}}</ref> this acquisition of more than 200 pieces is the largest collection of Guston's work held by a single institution.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pogrebin |first1=Robin |title=More Than 200 Philip Guston Works Are Headed to the Met |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/arts/design/philip-guston-met-museum-gift.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=December 16, 2022 |date=December 14, 2022}}</ref> In 2023, the Museum celebrated this promised gift with the ''Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I?''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I? - The Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/philip-guston |access-date=2025-07-04 |website=www.metmuseum.org |language=en}}</ref> exhibition. In 2025, Mayer reflected about her father and his legacy.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-05-25 |title=Philip Guston at The Met - The Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/philip-guston-musa-mayer |access-date=2025-07-04 |website=www.metmuseum.org |language=en}}</ref>
=== Academic affiliations === Guston was a lecturer and teacher at a number of universities, and served as an artist-in-residence at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa<ref>Brookman, Christopher from Grove Art online, http://www.moma.org/collection Accessed June 27, 2009</ref> from 1941 to 1945. He then served an artist-in-residence at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri until 1947. He continued with his teaching at New York University and at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and, from 1973 to 1978, he conducted a monthly graduate seminar at Boston University.<ref>http://www.themorgan.org/about/press.GustonChronology.pdf{{dead link |date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}} Accessed June 27, 2009</ref>
Among Guston's students were two graduates of the University of Iowa, painters Stephen Greene (1917–1999)<ref>Smith, Roberta, "Stephen Greene, 82, 'Painter with Distinctive Abstract Style'" November 29, 1999, Obituaries, ''The New York Times''</ref> and Fridtjof Schroder (1917–1990),<ref>Luther College Fine Art Collection, http://finearts.luther.edu/named_collections/schroder.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828020037/http://finearts.luther.edu/named_collections/schroder.html |date=August 28, 2008 }} Accessed June 27, 2009</ref> as well as Ken Kerslake (1930–2007), who attended the Pratt Institute. Rosemary Zwick was a student at Iowa.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Jules Heller|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AYxmAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR11|title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary|author2=Nancy G. Heller|date=December 19, 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-63882-5}}</ref> Among those who attended his graduate seminars at Boston University were painter Gary Komarin (1951–),<ref>Diehl, Carol, "Gary Komarin at Spanierman Gallery", May 2008, ''Art in America''</ref> sculptor and painter Susan Mastrangelo (1951–)<ref>Nelson, Jennifer. [https://www.thewoventalepress.net/2022/07/13/painting-with-fabric-and-knits/ "Painting With Fabric and Knits: Interview with Susan Mastrangelo"], ''The Woven Tale Press'', July 13, 2022. Retrieved June 13, 2023.</ref> and new media artist Christina McPhee (1954–).<ref>{{cite web|title=Christina McPhee | Biography|url=http://www.christinamcphee.net/about.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629112144/http://christinamcphee.net/about.html|archive-date=June 29, 2009|access-date=May 27, 2010}} Accessed June 27, 2009</ref>
He was also posthumously elected to the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.
=== 2020 controversy === In the fall of 2020, ''Philip Guston Now'', a long-planned traveling retrospective of Guston's work, which included 24 of the Klan paintings,<ref name="Jacobs-2020" /> was postponed until 2024 by the traveling show's four sponsoring institutions: the National Gallery of Art; the Tate Modern; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Holland|first=Oscar|date=October 1, 2020|title=Artists slam decision to postpone exhibition of Philip Guston's KKK paintings|publisher=CNN|url=https://www.cnn.com/style/article/philip-guston-kkk-art/index.html}}</ref><ref name="Farago-2020">{{Cite news|last=Farago|first=Jason|date=September 30, 2020|title=The Philip Guston Show Should Be Reinstated|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/arts/design/philip-guston-shows-open-letter.html}}</ref> In a joint press release issued by the museums, they wrote: "The racial justice movement that started in the U.S. and radiated to countries around the world, in addition to challenges of a global health crisis, have led us to pause," explaining that the international tour, which had already been rescheduled because of the coronavirus, was best delayed "until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice ... can be more clearly interpreted."<ref name="Saltz-2020" /><ref name="www.nga.gov" /> Public response led to a "deluge of criticism from inside the art world",<ref name="Jacobs-2020" /> as well as major articles in ''New York'' magazine, ''The New York Times'', CNN, ''Artforum'', ''Tablet'', and ''The Wall Street Journal'', among other publications.
The most scathing response was collective, and organized in an open letter published online by ''The Brooklyn Rail''. The letter featured a "list of signatories [that] reads like a roll call of the most accomplished American artists alive: old and young, white and Black, local and expat, painters and otherwise,"<ref name="Farago-2020" /> including Matthew Barney, Nicole Eisenman, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Wade Guyton, Rachel Harrison, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Adrian Piper, Pope.L, Martin Puryear, Amy Sillman, Lorna Simpson, Henry Taylor, and Christopher Williams. Strongly criticizing the museums' lack of courage to display the work, attempt to interpret it, or come to terms with the institutions' own "history of prejudice", the signers unanimously described the exhibition as a timely prompt for a "reckoning" — adding that that was why it must proceed as scheduled.<ref>{{Cite web|last=The Brooklyn Rail|title=Open Letter: On Philip Guston Now|url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVXTB30hp2oNz1Vm4P8jpXgg4sIieWNbdaqWqffHcN4/edit|website=The Brooklyn Rail's Google Docs site for the publication of the open letter}}</ref> As of October 3, 2020, more than 2,000 artists<ref name="Schwendener-2020" /> had signed the letter, but the exhibition organizers did not respond until they rescheduled the exhibition for dates beginning in 2022.<ref name="Artforum-2020">{{cite magazine |title=Postponed Philip Guston Retrospective to Open in 2022 |url=https://www.artforum.com/news/postponed-philip-guston-retrospective-to-open-in-2022-84317 |magazine=Artforum |date=November 6, 2020}}</ref> ''Philip Guston Now'' opened at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on May 1, 2022.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/28/arts/mfa-recast-guston-amid-nationwide-racial-reckoning-heres-result/ |title=The MFA recast artist Philip Guston amid a nationwide racial reckoning — here's the result |first=Murray |last=Whyte |website=The Boston Globe |url-access=limited |date=May 1, 2022 |access-date=May 1, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Philip Guston Now {{!}} Museum of Fine Arts Boston |url=https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/philip-guston-now |access-date=2025-07-04 |website=www.mfa.org |language=en}}</ref>
=== Popular culture === In "Cat and Girl versus Contemporary Art", part of the ''Cat and Girl'' webcomic series, author Dorothy Gambrell critiques the difficulty and purpose of finding the meaning behind art using Guston's iconic ''Head and Bottle'' painting.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://catandgirl.com/cat-and-girl-versus-contemporary-art/ |title=Cat and Girl » Archive » Cat and Girl versus Contemporary Art |website=catandgirl.com |language=en-US |access-date=October 28, 2017}}</ref>
== Auction record == In May 2013, Christie's set an auction record for the artist's work ''To Fellini'', which sold for US$25.8 million.<ref name="Artobserved-2013">{{cite web|url=http://artobserved.com/2013/05/new-york-ao-auction-results-christies-contemporary-evening-sale-wednesday-may-15th-2013/|title=AUCTION RESULTS: CHRISTIE'S CONTEMPORARY EVENING SALE|date=May 16, 2013|work=Artobserved}}</ref>
== See also == * Boston Expressionism * Max Beckmann * Composer Morton Feldman frequently drew inspiration from Guston's abstract expressionist work, including in the four-hour chamber composition ''For Philip Guston''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bernard |first=JW |editor-last=Johnson |editor-first=S |title=The New York schools of music and visual arts: John Cage, Morton Feldman, Edgard Varèse, Willem De Kooning, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg |chapter=Chapter 7: Feldman's painters |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8153-3364-7 |pages=203–204}}</ref> * Red Grooms * Claes Oldenburg * Jean Dubuffet
== References == {{reflist|30em}}
== Further reading == * Arnason, H. Harvard. ''Philip Guston''. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1962. * Auping, Michael. ''Philip Guston: Retrospective'' (Thames & Hudson, 2006). {{ISBN|978-0-500-28422-3}} * Botelho, Manuel. ''Guston em contexto: até ao regresso da figura''. Lisbon: Livros Vendaval, 2007. {{ISBN|978-972-8984-05-2}} * Bucklow, Christopher. ''What is in the Dwat. The Universe of Guston's Final Decade'' (The Wordsworth Trust, 2007) {{ISBN|978-1-905256-21-1}} * Burnett, Craig. ''Philip Guston: The Studio''. (London and Cambridge, MA: Afterall Books / MIT Press, 2014) * Coolidge, Clark. ''Baffling Means: Writings/Drawings'' (Stockbridge, MA: O-blek Editions, 1991). * Corbett, William. ''Philip Guston's Late Work: A Memoir'' (Cambridge, MA: Zoland Books, 1994) * Feld, Ross. ''Guston in Time: Remembering Philip Guston'' (Counterpoint Press, 2003) {{ISBN|978-1-58243-284-7}} * Mayer, Musa. ''Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston'' (originally published: New York: Knopf, 1988; new edition: Da Capo Press, 1997) {{ISBN|978-0-306-80767-1}} * Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings ''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists''], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929103229/http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793%26tab%3Dholdings |date=September 29, 2007 }} (New York School Press, 2000.) {{ISBN|978-0-9677994-0-7}}. p. 18; p. 37; p. 170–173 * Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50253062&tab=holdings ''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey''], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929125405/http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50253062%26tab%3Dholdings |date=September 29, 2007 }} (New York School Press, 2003.) {{ISBN|978-0-9677994-1-4}}. p. 150–153 * Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_bks&q=9780967799421&fq=dt%3Abks ''American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies'']. (New York School Press, 2009.) {{ISBN|978-0-9677994-2-1}}. p. 112–115; p. 136 * Dore Ashton, ''A Critical History of Philip Guston'', 1976 * Yale University Art Gallery, Joanna Weber and Harry Cooper. ''Philip Guston, a New Alphabet, the Late Transition'', 2000, {{ISBN|978-0-89467-085-5}} * Robert Storr, ''Guston'', Abbeville Press, Modern Masters, {{ISBN|978-0-89659-665-8}}, 1986 * David Kaufmann, ''Telling Stories: Philip Guston's Later Works'' (University of California Press, 2010) {{ISBN|978-0-520-26576-9}} * Peter Benson Miller, ed. ''Philip Guston, Roma'' ex. cat. with texts by Peter Benson Miller, Dore Ashton, Musa McKim and Michael Semff (Hatje Cantz, 2010) {{ISBN|978-3-7757-2632-0}} * Peter Benson Miller, ed. ''Go Figure! New Perspectives on Guston'', 2015 {{ISBN|978-1-59017-878-2}} * Michael Semff, 'An Unknown Lithograph from Philip Guston's Late Work,' Print Quarterly, XXVIII, 2011, 462–64 * 'Philip Guston: Prints', Catalogue Raisonné, Text by Michael Semff, English, Sieveking Verlag 2015, {{ISBN|978-3-944874-18-0}} * 'Philip Guston: Drawings for Poets', Foreword by Michael Krüger, Text by Bill Berkson, English, Sieveking Verlag 2015, {{ISBN|978-3-944874-19-7}} * {{cite journal |first=Robert |last=Zaller |title=The late iconography of Philip Guston |journal=Apodemon Epos: Magazine of European Art Center (EUARCE) of Greece |issue=5 |date=1998 |page=4 |url=https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/bbb0cf_154eb57bcb214901b001eb7ec1db0634.pdf}} * {{cite book | last=Cooper | first=Harry | last2=Godfrey | first2=Mark Benjamin | last3=Nesin | first3=Kate | last4=Greene | first4=Alison de Lima | title=Philip Guston Now | publisher=National gallery of art | publication-place=Washington | date=2020 | isbn=978-1-942884-56-9}} * {{cite book | last=Guston | first=Philip | title=Poor Richard by Philip Guston | publisher=Thames & Hudson | publication-place=Washington | date=2020 | isbn=978-1-942884-57-6}}
== External links == {{Commons category}} {{Wikiquote}} * [https://www.philipguston.org/home The Guston Foundation] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120423055127/http://www.baeditions.com/philip-guston-artwork.htm Philip Guston artwork at Brooke Alexander Gallery] * [https://www.moma.org/artists/2419 Works by Philip Guston and related exhibition records] at the Museum of Modern Art in New York * [http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?artist_id=2419 Biography of Philip Guston] by Christopher Brookeman, Grove Art Online, 2007 Oxford University Press * [http://mckeegallery.com/artists/philip-guston/ Philip Guston at McKee Gallery] at McKee Gallery, New York * [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1832431/ ''Philip Guston: A Life Lived'' (1982)] – Film about his life * [https://web.archive.org/web/20160922174028/http://www.michaelblackwoodproductions.com/old/artm_gustonconv.php ''Conversations with Philip Guston''] – Film by Michael Blackwood * [https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2003/philip-guston ''Philip Guston''] 2003 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of his paintings and drawings that covers the breath of his career * [https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/philip-guston ''Philip Guston: Works on Paper''] 2008 exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum; the exhibit was organized by the Kunstmuseum in Bonn and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich, and traveled after the Kunstmuseum to the Louisiana Museum in Denmark and the Albertina in Vienna. * [https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2011-02-11-philip-guston-roma ''Philip Guston, Roma''] 2011 exhibition at The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guston, Philip}} Category:20th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:20th-century Canadian painters Category:Canadian male painters Category:Abstract expressionist artists Category:American abstract artists Category:American contemporary painters Category:American muralists Category:Anglophone Quebec people Category:Modern painters Category:1913 births Category:1980 deaths Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Category:Jewish American painters Category:Jewish Canadian artists Category:Artists from Montreal Category:Art Students League of New York faculty Category:Washington University in St. Louis faculty Category:Otis College of Art and Design alumni Category:Artists from Woodstock, New York Category:Federal Art Project artists Category:20th-century American printmakers Category:Neo-expressionist artists Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:American satirists Category:Canadian satirists Category:New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture faculty Category:20th-century American Jews