Philip Guston: Painter - (Hardcover)

About the Book

Paintings and drawings from Philip Gustons abstract expressionist period, beginning in the late 1950s and spanning nearly a decade until the artists return to figuration in the late 1960s, are fully documented in this handsomely designed hardcover monograph. Featured are 90 black-and-white and color illustrations, an expanded chronology on the artist that is rich with archival material, historic installation views, conversations with Guston and selected texts by the artist himself from the exhibitions time period. The book concludes with a section of 50 of Gustons puredrawings completed in the late 1960s. Comprehensively and thoughtfully curated by noted scholar/curator Paul Schimmel, whose catalog essay provides an historical overview of this pivotal time in the American postwar abstract expressionist art movement, as well as the artists, curators and dealers who made it vibrant. Not since Gustons 1966 solo exhibition at the NY Jewish Museum has such an extensive overview of this early work been critically investigated.

Book Synopsis

Featuring nearly 90 paintings and drawings from Philip Guston's (1913-1980) Abstract Expressionist period, this book explores a decade in which the artist confronted aesthetic concerns of the New York School, questioning modes of image making and what it means to paint abstractly. In the number and quality of paintings from this period, the book parallels Guston's important 1966 survey exhibition held at the Jewish Museum in New York, a half century ago. As its title suggests, this volume offers an intimate look at Guston's unique relationship to painting and the process by which his work evolved. The publication also includes an expanded chronology on the artist, which includes archival material, historic installation views, plus conversations with Guston and texts by him. Philip Guston: Painter concludes with a section of 50 of Guston's "pure" drawings from the late '60s.