After a two-year-long delay, the exhibition Philip Guston Now just opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Expectations are high following earlier showings at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Guston (1913-1980) disappeared more than forty years ago, and a retrospective of his career which spans half a century allows to take a fresh look at his work in today's context. Time has come to reassess the artist's legacy overshadowed by controversy. The exhibition assembles more than two hundred paintings and drawings from public and private collections, displayed in the temporary exhibition area near the auditorium of the East building designed by the architect Pei.
Like advertisements, a video, two iconic paintings (Rug, 1976, and Painter's Table, 1973, from the National Gallery of Art's permanent collection) and a wall text, introduce the exhibit. The artist's short biography provides the thread for the show organized in chronological order, and includes at the bottom a warning about its content. At first glance it feels like being in the wrong place: Picasso? De Chirico? Max Ernst? and more... The self-taught artist ( Guston could not afford art classes) gets his inspiration from the bests and acquires a flawless technique producing works like Mother and Child, c.1930, or Female Nude with Easel, 1935. In Bombardment, 1937, a tondo about Guernica, Guston expresses the horror of the dramatic event with evocative images surrounding a fiery explosion. He finds work as a muralist, influenced by artists like Orozco and Siqueiros. Early on, the "student" introduces personal marks like a lightbulb in Nude Philosopher in Space-Time, 1935 or a hood in Drawing for Conspirators, 1930, rich in symbolism.
The path of the artist veers slowly to abstraction with tight compositions like The Porch, 1946-1947 and The Porch II, 1947, followed by three dark red paintings made from 1947 to 1950 in which shapes are hardly visible, like fading hieroglyphs. Guston's move to New York City, where he reunites with his high school's friend Jackson Pollock and the group of abstract expressionist painters, appears to be a new beginning, and the next gallery is filled with colors from paintings lined up on both sides: the pinnacle of Guston's abstract period is represented by about ten works starting with an earlier piece White Painting I, 1951, and ending with Fable, 1956-1957, and Voyage, 1956. Guston rejected the fame brought by the exhibition of his works at the Guggenheim in 1962, and his black-grey self-portraits Smoker, 1963, Painter III, 1963, Head I, 1965, reflect his mood at the time. All along, the display of drawings combined with the paintings highlights the artist's reliance on the technique, foundation of his practice. In the late sixties, he literally went back to the drawing board. The artist's struggle comes to light through about twenty of his studies (1966-1968) organized on a wall, starting with a line, a shape then an object, followed by twenty five small images of painted objects (oil on panel) set in a narrow passage. From design to colors, lightbulb, iron, curtain, nail, book, shoes, ..., reach a "Gustonian" status and define his cartoonish alphabet. A sign at the entrance of a gallery on the right side warns the visitors about its content: the famous Marlborough paintings, at least some of them. In 1970, the exhibition at the Marlborough gallery with thirty new paintings represents a watershed in Guston's practice and life. Being surrounded by key works from Guston can be overwhelming: bigger size, pink color, content. It takes some time to look at The Studio, 1969, Caught, 1970, City Limits, 1969, ... more than ten paintings from the period next to each other. The omnipresent hooded figures, intellectually acceptable in Guston's context, remain culturally sensitive and the show's lay-out allows to skip the area filled with the paintings representing the crux of Guston's practice.
Following the Cyclops series, which include the famous derisive self-portrait Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1972, the tone becomes intimate with the inclusion of Musa, his dedicated wife. Never the focal point, she is depicted as a remote but powerful presence, with on top of her head, a hairpiece like a sunset. The Ladder, 1978, depicts a touching scene in which the painter climbs a blue wall to reach Musa, a spiritual endeavor. Guston is facing aging and illness, torn between his roles as caregiver and artist. He holds his brushes tight while embracing Musa in Couple in Bed, 1977. The background is black and grey with a watch in the center of the painting. Time is running out. In a corner, a few drawings commissioned by the Navy and studies for murals made between 1936-1942 feel out of place as the exhibition progresses toward the last decade of Guston's career defined by darker works like Flame, 1979, Talking, 1979 or Kettle, 1978, facing a series of smaller canvasses still lifes from 1980, on view for the show in Washington only. Before reaching the last gallery, the ominous hand of God emerges from a puffy cloud, drawing a line (The Line, 1978). Six more late paintings, three of them about the studio, make up the grand finale including a one hourlong documentary about the artist in the nearby theater.
The exhibition is flawless from the selection of works, to the wall texts and intermingled artist's quotes complemented by an essential catalog. It highlights the tight connection between Guston's life events and his practice and rejuvenates his paintings seen in a new social and political context. The visit of his career's most controversial period is softened by appropriate wall texts and the plan of the galleries. Projecting his personal conflicts on the canvass, the artist makes himself vulnerable as he brings along a great dose of cynicism and humor. He does not shy from his personal demons which brought him to adopt a most reviled figure as his doppelganger: "The idea of evil fascinated me,..., I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil?"
Another quote about the Vietnam war gives a key to his practice:
"...What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into frustrated fury about everything- and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?" Guston did not believe in art for art's sake. It appears that if his early years including his abstract expressionist period deserve attention, Guston really thrived when he became himself: a storyteller.
"Self-Portrait", 1944
"Dial", 1956
"The Studio" 1969
"The Street", 1977
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