Philip Guston

Recognized as a pioneer of abstract expressionism before his return to figuration in the late 1960s, for Philip Guston painting was an encounter between thought and feeling, image and idea. This exhibition presents two bodies of work from different periods, abstract (1952-64) and figurative (1968-1977), that together show the depth and complexity of his personal iconography. This significant collection of 14 drawings and paintings reveals Guston’s complete commitment to direct experience, moving between a pictorial language relating to his studio and painting tools, to contemplative motifs of his wife, the poet Musa McKim, and their shared lives together.

‘The Actors V’ (1962) and ‘Group II’ (1964) are both dominated by a central group of dense black forms embedded in smoky gestural fields of subdued grey, obliterating the artist’s previous more lyrical abstraction with their shimmering fields of luminous color. These dark forms command the viewer’s attention in a new and urgent way. This group of abstract paintings also demonstrates a search for self-representation, a subject that would continue to occupy Guston’s creative output until his death in 1980.

By the mid-1970s, the iconic forms emerging from the paintings were unlike anything previously seen, harnessing the narrative power Guston had known in his murals and early figurative works as a young painter. An original language of pictorial symbols became synonymous with the artist’s work. His painting tools and scenes of the studio joined various objects of domestic life to allow an intimate view of Guston’s life and his process of continuous self-reflection. Works dedicated to his wife Musa began to appear with increasing frequency from 1975 onwards, as we see in ‘Musa’ (1975) and subsequent drawings on view. She was a constant source of contemplation for him, and the compelling authenticity of these works attest to the power of their bond.