Cultured Magazine

April/May 2016

Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/666019

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 105 of 243

104 culturedmag.com PHOTO BY ARTHUR SWOGER; COURTESY ©THE ESTATE OF PHILIP GUSTON, HAUSER & WIRTH IN THE ABSTRACT A new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth New York recalls an overlooked period in the career of master American painter Philip Guston. BY KATY DIAMOND HAMER What do brushstrokes tell us about a painter? Similar to a written signature, those singular linear marks are unique to each individual, and can change over time. Case in point: a new Philip Guston exhibition at the New York location of Hauser & Wirth, which recently announced its exclusive worldwide representation of the estate of the painter, who died in 1980. The gallery's premiere Guston show features a series of paintings and drawings dating from 1957 through 1967, a time when the artist was known specifically for his abstraction. Early in his career, Guston made narrative figurative paintings, often working with the WPA on large-scale murals. Then, as Hauser & Wirth Director Anders Bergstrom points out, "In 1950 he started painting completely abstractly and became well known for these works." Curated by Paul Schimmel, "Painter" includes a series of pieces with a limited color palette consisting of earth tones: greys, muted blues, deep reds and greens. The artist moved paint around the surface in a varied yet seemingly specific way. Sometimes it goes to the edge of the work, such as in Fable II from 1957, an oil painting on illustration board. Often it's possible to recognize the thought process of the artist as he applied his medium thickly by brush, working it with other colors on the piece itself rather than the palette. A few years later, Guston made Traveler III (1959-60), an oil painting on canvas containing a frenetic life energy. Most of the pieces on view in "Painter" were celebrated in a 1962 exhibition at New York's Guggenheim Museum. After his death, in 2003, Guston received a major retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum, "but there were only maybe eight paintings that represented 1957 to '67," says Bergstrom. "We're taking those years and blowing it up to 30-plus paintings. People will literally for the first time in 50 years be able to see this many works from that era in one place at one time." In the 1982 documentary Philip Guston: A Life Lived, he was asked a question about his stylistic evolution between 1962 and 1969. While slightly shrugging his shoulders and lighting a cigarette, he replied, "You work in this style or that style, as if you had a choice in the matter. What you are doing is trying to stay alive and continue and not die." Guston's later body of figure-based pieces, once reviled, has influenced a generation. But regarding the abstract paintings currently on view at Hauser & Wirth, the artist stated, "I recognize that they are dissolved and you don't have figuration, but that's really besides the point. What is to the point is that I'm in the same state [when making them]. The rest is not my business." Philip Guston in his New York City loft, 1957.

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Cultured Magazine - April/May 2016