Philip Guston: Locating the Image
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford (November 2019-March 2020)
The act of drawing is what locates, suggests, discovers …
Philip Guston, 1973
Philip Guston (1913-1980) was an internationally acclaimed American artist whose response to the political and social tumult of the post-war decades resulted in a prolific artistic output. Over the course of his career, his style transformed from figuration to abstraction to figuration. Yet for him there was no opposition between figuration and abstraction. His productive output was driven by his desire to unify the ‘story’ and the plastic structure of the artwork in response to a changing political and social landscape. ‘Locating the image’ through intensive periods of drawing was central to this.
The exhibition introduces Guston’s art to visitors who may be unfamiliar with it by displaying works on paper from each stylistic phase. At the same time, it presents a new understanding to those familiar with Guston’s practice by focusing on two themes: the role of drawing on the one hand, and the inspiration he took from literature on the other. Selected works by Guston are displayed in juxtaposition with works from the Museum’s historical collections by Gui Xia, Domenico Tiepolo, Francisco Goya and Camille Corot, to name but a few. The project also features books and journals from Guston’s personal library. This material, exhibited in public here for the first time, draws attention to his abiding interest in European art and literature.
Curated by Karen Lang, Slade Professor of Fine Art, University of Oxford, 2019-2020 (with Lena Fritsch, Curator Modern and Contemporary Art, Ashmolean Museum)