Philip Guston is an iconic American painter whose work has transformed from abstract expressionism into idiosyncratic lexicon of painterly forms and a cartoonish figures. “The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined,” he once reflected. “It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.” He was born on June 27, 1913 in Montreal, Canada to Ukranian-Jewish immigrant parents. He grew up in California, where he attended the Los Angeles Arts and crafts high school with Jackson Pollock. In the 1930s, Guston moved to New York and enrolled in the Works Progress Administration, where he created works inspired by Mexican Muralists and Italian Renaissance paintings. In the 1950s, along with Willem de Kooning and his former classmate Pollock, become an integral part of the city’s art scene.
Philip Guston, Summer, 1980
In the late 1960s, Guston abandoned his success and abstract dialogue, leading to the loss of his Gallery representation and virulent scorn from critics. However, it was the artist’s later work that proved to be his most lasting contribution to art history. featuring recurring images of hooded Klansmen, Richard Nixon, smoldering cigarettes, and huge eyeballs, works such as In the Studio that influenced generations of painters And established GUSTON’s position in the 20th Century Art Canon. He passed away on June 7,1980, in Woodstock, New York. Today, the artist’s work can be found in the collections of Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tate Gallery in London, among others.
resource:https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/philip-guston-1231
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