Philip Guston at Washington National Gallery

Philip Guston

(Musical Background: Schubert, Notturno in E Flat Major for Piano Trio, Op. 148, D. 897, performed by Leonard Hokanson and the Ensemble Villa Musica)

Philip Guston (1913 - 1980) started as a muralist; later he joined the Abstract Expressionists from New York; he was a close friend of Pollock and De Kooning.
In the sixties he changed completely his style and became kind of a Hyperrealist (without being properly a Hyperrealist), or kind of of Pop (without being properly Pop Art), or kind of Dada (without being properly a Dadaist). In other words, he became his own guy. He explained once that he had become tired of the purity of Abstractionism and desired to tell stories again.

My first encounter with his art was at the Phillips Collection: the drawing of a hand with six fingers!

Now, they arranged two rooms for his art works at the Washington National Gallery.

Review, 1949-50
oil on canvas

Oasis, 1957
oil on canvas

Untitled, 1964
oil on canvas

Courtroom, 1970
oil on canvas

Rug, 1976
oil on canvas

Midnight Pass Road, 1975
oil on canvas

Ladder, 1978
oil on canvas

Room, 1979
lithograph

Iron, 1976
acrylic on paperboard

Curtain, 1979
lithograph

Back View, 1969
pencil on vowe paper

Shoes, 1979
lithograph

Ascent, 1952
pen and black ink on vowe paper

Untitled, 1968
charcoal on wove paper

Untitled, 1963
brush and black ink on vowe paper

Untitled, 1963
brush and black ink on vowe paper

(Washington DC National Gallery of Art)