Philip Guston
zi...@interport.net
I remember his first abstract expressionist show quite well. He had
begun to show in the Peridot Gallery where Alfred Russell had been a
regular. Russell used to go back and forth between New York City and
Paris. In Paris he showed in one of the galleries where the other post
war "art informel" artists showed their work. In the United States the
highpoint of his career could be seen in two events. In 1949 when AE
finally became Kosher, the Whitney Museum hung deKooning's Attic in
the entry hall in the place of honor. Alfred Russell's large gouache
was hung to its right. The other high point came when Sidney Janis
put together a show called Paris -New York, which was also going to
show in a major venue in Paris, perhaps Galerie Louis Carr'e. The
show consisted of, among the Americans, Pollock, Rothko, Dekooning,
Klein and Russell. Among the Europeans Des Stael, Hartung, Wols,
Vieira Da Silva an one other.
In January of 1951, the Peridot Gallery run by Lou Pollack, had its
post Christmas show - a group show of all the gallery artists. Guston,
who had had one show of those red and black things he had been doing
at the American Academy in Rome, already, contributed one of those.
Russell put in a painting 7 x 9 Feet which he called "landscape".
With just a tiny twitch, that painting could have hung in Guston's
first abstract impressionist show. But Russell was unstable, and when
Guston had that show, he went a little mad and produced a show of
paintings in which the Greek gods were strolling through his old
abstract expressionist paintings. And he instantly lost favor. Russell
was a good classical draftsman, and had taken a degree at Columbia
with Gisella Richter in Greek art.
I heard Guston lecture at the Yale Norfolk school in the mid 1970s or
early 80s. He was still painting in the abstract style. e I was senior
faculty, there. He lied about everything in his development. He
claimed that the abstract impressionist paintings came from emptying
his mind of all the art ideas he had known before and starting fresh.
In fact he gypped like crazy from Russell.
Earlier in his career he had been influenced by a combination opf
early Beckman and somewhat cubust pictorial techniquez. Those
conservative modernist paintings became the standard for a curator who
saw to it that they were placed everywhere in collections. In 1944 or
5, I think, when the Carnegie International had its only national
exhibition insterad of international as usual, he went back to a much
more conservative painting style, and painted a portrait of a girl,
and so charmed the conservative jury that he won the prize.
The late style has had many adherents among the art world and among
students who were doing some sort of conventional abstract painting
before it showed up. It helped devalue abstract expressionism since
he was regarded as a major figure and was abandoning it for something
which looked to them post AE and not pious at all. I think it was
post AE and not pious, but since he was not an original AE, why could
he not figure out a new style which would warm the cockles of the
hearts of the now post AE art world public? He had to do something.
His old painting were history. His new abstraction were not selling
and he had been written off. Ergo a new concoction. He was always
clever and unprincipled. And I think he was talented. But talent does
not mean too much to me. Principles are much more important. And
authenticity should not be a goal. It should shine forth out of
everything you do.
Well, now you know why I don;t think anything of Guston. And it is a
different set of reasons from what has been said here. By the way,
not long ago I saw a painting from the first AE show. It is in the
little museum of Northeastern Iowa State College. It has not held up
well. It looked a lot better when it was first painted, in that
milieu. Now it looks very shallow.
Gabriel
In other words, his whole life was spent faking it.
Dott Schneider
I know a few people, me included, that are very interested in Guston's work and have found a "language" of their own through the very same venue that Guston used which was "emptying his mind of all the art ideas he had known before and starting fresh". To me this is the way to pure drawing and painting - trying to stay away from the influence of academia and putting forth what the artists "sees".
I had found a good read about him titled "Night Studio" by Guston's daughter. When I was in art school in France, I was looking for a way to break away from what other people wanted me to paint and what I truly needed to paint. You can understand that he illustrated his wife's poetry with his paintings and drawings as well.
I'm sure that a lot of people find Guston's work offensive, but I don't.
zi...@interport.net
If a man has lied regularly in his work and about his work. Has been a
poseur for years and years, why would you believe what he is telling
you about the "symbolism" in his latest work? It sounds very clever
to seem to be authentic in his symbolism, just as he seemed [to most
people who did not know the real story] to be authentic as an Abstract
Impressionist, but it is a level of belief which it is difficult to
rise to. It is even possible that you might something good out of him
which wasn't there in his own work. His lies might help someone
else's truth. But that would be because you are authentic and not
Guston.
One of the sources of Guston's imagery, besides comic strips was the
works of the Scuola Metafisica painters in Italy. All of them had an
authentic moment in their earliest work. The early Di Chirico remains
wonderful work, rich in meaning and surprizing in ideation. You can
see the influence of his German teacher [whose name I have forgotten,
today]. That teacher really only did one thing which seems to be
continued by Di Chirico, a series of prints called "The Rape of the
Glove." It was a truly and fully authentic moment for him. Di
Chirico, informed as well by the images of cubist paintings was able
to take that one moment of authenticity and build some ten years or so
of marvelous, authentic work of his own on it. After that his work
seems one stage ploy after another. But, coming out of Di Chirico's
school, Morandu kept it going for a long time.
The history of art is full of artists in other countries getting
someone else's national art wrong for their own purposes and making
marvels with it. Like the Chinese with perspective painting and
Renaissance detail, or the French with Japanese prints, or the Cubists
with African art. So why should you not take the words and work of a
poseur and do wonders with an idea he made up to sell it as if it were
real?
Gabriel
On Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:59:25 -0500, Dott Schneider
<dosc...@cis.csuohio.edu> wrote:
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>It is my understanding that Guston decided to use <i>very </i>personal
>symbols in his paintings e.i. the shoes, the bare lightbulbs, etc.
>Also, using the strict bare minimum of "color" allows the viewer to the
>question of why he used those symbols and what do they mean instead
>of being hindered by the sensory overload that many painters have oppressed
>us with.
><p>I know a few people, me included, that are very interested in Guston's
>work and have found a "language" of their own through the very same venue
>that Guston used which was "emptying his mind of all the art ideas he had
>known before and starting fresh". To me this is the way to pure drawing
>and painting - trying to stay away from the influence of academia and putting
>forth what the artists "sees".
><p>I had found a good read about him titled "Night Studio" by Guston's
>daughter. When I was in art school in France, I was looking for a
>way to break away from what other people wanted me to paint and what I
>truly needed to paint. You can understand that he illustrated his
>wife's poetry with his paintings and drawings as well.
><p>I'm sure that a lot of people find Guston's work offensive, but I don't.
><p>zi...@interport.net wrote:
><blockquote TYPE=CITE>For my own reasons I have no respect for him.
><p>I remember his first abstract expressionist show quite well. He had
><br>begun to show in the Peridot Gallery where Alfred Russell had been
>a
><br>regular. Russell used to go back and forth between New York City
>and
><br>Paris. In Paris he showed in one of the galleries where the other post
><br>war "art informel" artists showed their work. In the United States
>the
><br>highpoint of his career could be seen in two events. In 1949 when AE
><br>finally became Kosher, the Whitney Museum hung deKooning's Attic in
><br>the entry hall in the place of honor. Alfred Russell's large gouache
><br>was hung to its right. The other high point came when Sidney
>Janis
><br>put together a show called Paris -New York, which was also going to
><br>show in a major venue in Paris, perhaps Galerie Louis Carr'e.
>The
><br>show consisted of, among the Americans, Pollock, Rothko, Dekooning,
><br>Klein and Russell. Among the Europeans Des Stael, Hartung, Wols,
><br>Vieira Da Silva an one other.
><p>In January of 1951, the Peridot Gallery run by Lou Pollack, had its
><br>post Christmas show - a group show of all the gallery artists. Guston,
><br>who had had one show of those red and black things he had been doing
><br>at the American Academy in Rome, already, contributed one of those.
><br>Russell put in a painting 7 x 9 Feet which he called "landscape".
><br>With just a tiny twitch, that painting could have hung in Guston's
><br>first abstract impressionist show. But Russell was unstable, and when
><br>Guston had that show, he went a little mad and produced a show of
><br>paintings in which the Greek gods were strolling through his old
><br>abstract expressionist paintings. And he instantly lost favor. Russell
><br>was a good classical draftsman, and had taken a degree at Columbia
><br>with Gisella Richter in Greek art.
><p>I heard Guston lecture at the Yale Norfolk school in the mid 1970s or
><br>early 80s. He was still painting in the abstract style. e I was senior
><br>faculty, there. He lied about everything in his development. He
><br>claimed that the abstract impressionist paintings came from emptying
><br>his mind of all the art ideas he had known before and starting fresh.
><br>In fact he gypped like crazy from Russell.
><p>Earlier in his career he had been influenced by a combination opf
><br>early Beckman and somewhat cubust pictorial techniquez. Those
><br>conservative modernist paintings became the standard for a curator
>who
><br>saw to it that they were placed everywhere in collections. In 1944
>or
><br>5, I think, when the Carnegie International had its only national
><br>exhibition insterad of international as usual, he went back to a much
><br>more conservative painting style, and painted a portrait of a girl,
><br>and so charmed the conservative jury that he won the prize.
><p>The late style has had many adherents among the art world and among
><br>students who were doing some sort of conventional abstract painting
><br>before it showed up. It helped devalue abstract expressionism
>since
><br>he was regarded as a major figure and was abandoning it for something
><br>which looked to them post AE and not pious at all. I think it
>was
><br>post AE and not pious, but since he was not an original AE, why could
><br>he not figure out a new style which would warm the cockles of
>the
><br>hearts of the now post AE art world public? He had to do something.
><br>His old painting were history. His new abstraction were not selling
><br>and he had been written off. Ergo a new concoction. He
>was always
><br>clever and unprincipled. And I think he was talented. But talent does
><br>not mean too much to me. Principles are much more important. And
><br>authenticity should not be a goal. It should shine forth out of
><br>everything you do.
><p>Well, now you know why I don;t think anything of Guston. And it
>is a
><br>different set of reasons from what has been said here. By the
>way,
><br>not long ago I saw a painting from the first AE show. It is in the
><br>little museum of Northeastern Iowa State College. It has not
>held up
><br>well. It looked a lot better when it was first painted, in that
><br>milieu. Now it looks very shallow.
><br>Gabriel
><p>In other words, his whole life was spent faking it.</blockquote>
></html>
>
>--------------921D5C5FECA1F75F93A6B53D--
>
emat...@tomatoweb.com
Dott Schneider <dosc...@cis.csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> It is my understanding that Guston decided to use very personal symbols in
> his paintings e.i. the shoes, the bare lightbulbs, etc. Also, using the
> strict bare minimum of "color" allows the viewer to the question of why
> he used those symbols and what do they mean instead of being hindered by
> the sensory overload that many painters have oppressed us with.
>
> I know a few people, me included, that are very interested in Guston's
> work and have found a "language" of their own through the very same venue
> that Guston used which was "emptying his mind of all the art ideas he had
> known before and starting fresh". To me this is the way to pure drawing
> and painting - trying to stay away from the influence of academia and
> putting forth what the artists "sees".
>
> I had found a good read about him titled "Night Studio" by Guston's
> daughter. When I was in art school in France, I was looking for a way to
> break away from what other people wanted me to paint and what I truly
> needed to paint. You can understand that he illustrated his wife's poetry
> with his paintings and drawings as well.
>
> I'm sure that a lot of people find Guston's work offensive, but I don't.
>
Pain character that appeared regularly in the Sunday Funnies, as an
advertisement for Bayer or Anacin. Anyone remember? He was this green-guy
shaped like a bean with bristly hairs sticking out all over.
I got interested in Guston after hearing lectures by Wayne Thiebaud, who was
a good friend of his. Thiebaud admired Guston's work, but was very intrigued
by the major 'shift' in his career. But then Thiebaud loves comic art also
(especially Harriman). (As a matter of fact I don't remember Wayne playing
the 'this is good, this is bad" game at all).
Erik Mattila
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Dott Schneider
What is the harm in taking an idea of someone else's and running with it? If it is the principle of the matter, it seems that your argument, although valid in the moral sense, has no backbone in the real world.
With global interaction in place for a long time, we cannot deny any
sort of mutation of ideas. Just as evolution takes place in the physical
world with different species being conceived everyday, we can't keep complaining
everytime an idea merges with another. So what if the idea isn't
"authentic". Who cares. It pushes other ideas. What's your
real beef?
That Guston may have lied about his work? So what! I personally
like his work. That's still my opinion and I'm sticking with it.
Andrew Werby
<dosc...@cis.csuohio.edu> wrote:
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> Wow, Guston's work must really get you steamed.
[It sounds like it was his words, rather than his work, that Gabriel
disapproves of- so much so that he's unable to experience the paintings
themselves. Of course, he was so involved with the messianic thrust of
the AE movement that anybody who stopped doing it and started doing
something else was necessarily regarded as a traitor, with motives
that were obviously venal.]
It seems to me that one cannot
> prove or disprove an artist's work after the artist is dead. We can only
> speculate. It doesn't matter how scholarly one is. The truth is always
subject
> to scrutiny. Read your logic.
[I had trouble with it too. This notion of "Authenticity" as somehow
validating by its presence or invalidating by its absence is hard to
swallow. Is this the new touchstone? Can one really negate, in an hour's
babbling before an audience, years worth of patient effort? Is an artist
doomed to carry on with one style all his life, or be damned for
insincerity?]
>
> What is the harm in taking an idea of someone else's and running with
it? If it
> is the principle of the matter, it seems that your argument, although
valid in the
> moral sense, has no backbone in the real world.
[And even less in the world of art.]
>
> With global interaction in place for a long time, we cannot deny any sort of
> mutation of ideas. Just as evolution takes place in the physical world with
> different species being conceived everyday, we can't keep complaining
everytime an
> idea merges with another. So what if the idea isn't "authentic". Who
cares. It
> pushes other ideas. What's your real beef?
> That Guston may have lied about his work? So what! I personally like
his work.
> That's still my opinion and I'm sticking with it.
[The nice thing about this group is the way one can clarify ones own
ideas by bouncing them off of people whose ideas are quite different.
Having somebody suddenly oppose ideas that one had taken for granted
makes it possible to articulate things one always knew but never had
to put into words.]
>
> zi...@interport.net wrote:
>
> > If a man has lied regularly in his work and about his work. Has been a
> > poseur for years and years, why would you believe what he is telling
> > you about the "symbolism" in his latest work?
[Why would you need to? Maybe he did lie about his symbolism- what
difference does that make to the experience of viewing the picture?]
It sounds very clever
> > to seem to be authentic in his symbolism, just as he seemed [to most
> > people who did not know the real story] to be authentic as an Abstract
> > Impressionist, but it is a level of belief which it is difficult to
> > rise to.
[A story is just that- a story. I think art should be judged without
reference to narrative, on its own terms. But that makes me a "formalist"
I guess.]
[Why can't you admit that he did wonders with it himself; "poseur" or
not? Is it so hard to imagine that somebody would (gasp!) get bored
with Abstract Expressionism?]
Andrew Werby
UNITED ARTWORKS- Sculpture, Jewelry, and other art stuff
http://unitedartworks.com
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