Philip Guston (1913-1980) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) could have met. Guston discovered Picasso's work while visiting the Arensberg Collection in the 1920's in Los Angeles and later in 1937 when the famous Guernica (1937) reached the American shores and toured several cities to bolster the aid for Spanish refugees. The same year, Bombardment (1937) from Guston and The dream and Lie of Franco (1937), a series of prints from Picasso hung close by in the exhibition organized to support the Spanish people and world democracy in New York City. The Irony of History, the latest exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris housed in Hôtel Salé, emphasizes the link between the two artists through their politically engaged works, mainly the influence of the elder Picasso on Guston. The display set on two levels of the museum includes mostly satirical paintings and drawings from the two artists, and offers an overview of Guston's career.
For the visitors less familiar with Philip Guston, a detailed biography introduces the show next to one painting, Sleeping (1977), a "gustonesque" self-deprecatory portrait of the artist in a fetal position hiding under his blanket, waiting for inspiration. The drawing of a cubist Picasso in his studio facing an empty canvas (The Artist before His Canvas,1938) is paired with a smoking, hooded Guston surrounded by his familiar props, clock and light bulb, painting a self-portrait (The Studio,1969).We can almost hear him mutter his famous quote: "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 from Guston conveys his internal conflict as an artist confronted with a troubled political landscape. "What kind of a man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?" Both appear lost for inspiration in the context of war atrocities during the Spanish Civil War for the former and the Vietnam War for the latter. The Painter of the Hole (1947), a watercolor from George Grosz who witnessed the horrors of two world wars would be a fitting addition. Two figurative works next to each other in a similar neoclassical style: Jeune fille au chapeau les mains croisées/ Girl in a Hat with Her Hands Clasped (1921) and an early work from a seventeen-year-old Guston Mother and Child (1930) hint to the influence of Picasso as well as Renaissance Masters on the burgeoning artist. Three small studies for murals commissioned through the WPA allude to his connections with Mexican muralists like Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera then active in California. Close to a collage of enlarged newspaper clips about the bombing of Guernica, Bombardment (1937), a tondo from Guston appears of modest size for its content. A response to the destruction of the Basque town by the Fascists, the composition features harrowing scenes including a mother and child hurled by the blast, buildings reduced to rubbles, a figure wearing a gas masks, all spinning around an explosion crater as airplanes hover in formation above. Nearby the sketch of the head of a terrified agonizing horse by Picasso is the only reference to his famous cubist painting Guernica (1937) now housed at the Reina Sophía Museum in Madrid.
Guston's political engagement through his art started early with his hooded figures about the KKK appearing in the 1930's but his satirical work blossomed in the 70's. Poor Richard, the series of seventy-three caricatures about Nixon and his administration, released in 2001 after Guston's death, was made in 1971. He was then close to his neighbor in Woodstock, the novelist Philip Roth who wrote Our Gang, a political satire about Nixon. His books and publications are exposed in a glass case under bright spotlights with Guston's drawings nearby displayed in a double raw along the wall and Picasso's Plate I and II of Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) which inspired Guston. Picasso's eleven ink and gouache caricatures of famous people (from 1905 to 1959) are found close to sixteen such portraits from Guston made around 1955 with ink or pencil on paper. The only color is brought by a portrait of Nixon titled San Clemente (1975). The square painting depicts the former president who found refuge in California after his resignation. Doubled over with his swollen left leg wrapped in frayed bandages, he appears miserable and also laughable with his phallic nose and tears of self-pity. Guston's obsession with Nixon supplied most of his material for his political caricatures in the 70's. The austere display is followed by two vibrant paintings from Guston's abstract expressionist period in the 50's as the exhibition turns into an abbreviated chronological review of Guston's career. After a short brake from painting, Guston shocked the art world when he released his first cartoonish figurative paintings in 1970 at the Marlborough gallery. Seven well-known paintings sum up his production, all quintessential Guston, accompanied by wall texts providing their context. Guston's caustic wit transpires in all of them from the earliest Dawn (1970) with its hooded shady figures to the latest, East-Coker Tse (1979) about the artist himself, on his death bed. The short display ends abruptly to be continued in the basement where twelve of his late paintings are lined up around a room. Of small format they were made following Guston's heart attack and offer a sample of his iconic symbols in ink and acrylic on paper.
Philip Guston is the latest artist invited for a temporary exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris, most of which are organized to emphasize the influence of Picasso on their guests' work. The highlight of the show is the display of rarely seen caricatures of both artists in the same space. In spite of belonging to different worlds and times, their connection is striking and underlines the power of political satire in visual art. It is challenging for the visitor to look at more than one hundred small drawings, each with a story and implied historical references. Guston's works on view are carefully selected, and the show allows to see in a new light well-known pieces included in Philip Guston Now, an exhaustive exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 2023, this time short and to the point in "Picasso's temple".
1- Philip Guston "Sleeping" (1977)
2- Pablo Picasso "L'Artiste devant sa toile/The Artist in front of his canvas" (1938)
3- Philip Guston "San Clemente" (1975)
4- Pablo Picasso "Songe et mensonge de Franco/Dream and lie of Franco" Plate I (1937)
5- Philip Guston "Bombardment" (1937)
