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Philip Guston Art

American, 1913-1980
Philip Guston (1913–1980) was an influential American artist whose career evolved from social realism to abstract expressionism and finally to a unique form of figurative painting. Born in Montreal, Canada, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Guston grew up in Los Angeles, where he was introduced to art and politics at a young age. His early years were marked by personal tragedy, including his father’s suicide, an event that profoundly influenced his later work. In the 1930s, Guston began his artistic career as a muralist under the Federal Art Project, inspired by the social realism of Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera. During this time, his work conveyed strong political and social messages, reflecting the struggles of the working class and the political tensions of the era. By the 1940s, Guston moved to New York, where he became associated with the burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement alongside artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. His abstract works from this period were characterized by lush, painterly surfaces and a focus on emotional resonance. Despite his success as an Abstract Expressionist, Guston grew increasingly dissatisfied with abstraction’s limitations in addressing personal and societal concerns. In the late 1960s, he made a dramatic shift back to representational imagery, a move that shocked the art world. His later works incorporated cartoonish, symbolic figures—hooded Ku Klux Klan-like characters, shoes, lightbulbs, and disembodied heads—depicting themes of existential angst, political corruption, and personal reflection. These provocative images, such as in The Studio (1969), addressed racism, violence, and the complexities of human identity with biting humour and raw emotion. Critics initially derided Guston’s return to figuration, but his bold departure from abstraction ultimately cemented his legacy as a pioneering figure who challenged conventions and explored deeply personal and political themes. His work resonates with an unflinching honesty and continues to influence contemporary artists grappling with societal issues and the human condition. Guston died in 1980, leaving behind a body of work that defies categorization yet remains profoundly impactful. Today, he is celebrated as an artist who pushed boundaries and redefined what painting could be, inspiring generations with his fearless creativity and commitment to authenticity.
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Elements

Elements

By Philip Guston

Located in San Francisco, CA

Philip Guston was born in 1913 in Montreal, Canada. He began painting at the age of 12, and in 1927 he enrolled in the Los Angeles Manual Arts High School , where both he and Jackson...

Category

1970s Modern Philip Guston Art

Materials

Lithograph

Rare 1970s offset lithograph exhibition print (pencil signed by Philip Guston)
Rare 1970s offset lithograph exhibition print (pencil signed by Philip Guston)

Rare 1970s offset lithograph exhibition print (pencil signed by Philip Guston)

By Philip Guston

Located in New York, NY

Philip Guston at David McKee Gallery (pencil signed by Philip Guston), 1974 Lithograph and offset lithograph poster Signed in graphite pencil under the image 24 1/2 × 20 inches Unframed, unnumbered Rare vintage lithographic poster of 1974 Guston exhibition at David McKee Gallery Signed under the image in graphite pencil by Philip Guston Another hand signed edition is in the permanent collection of Vassar College; otherwise we haven't seen another besides the present work; a true collectors item when hand signed by the artist. Philip Guston Biography Philip Guston (1913 – 1980) is one of the great luminaries of twentieth-century art. His commitment to producing work from genuine emotion and lived experience ensures its enduring impact. Guston’s legendary career spanned a half century, from 1930 to 1980. His paintings—particularly the liberated and instinctual forms of his late work—continue to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of contemporary painters. Born in Montreal, Canada, in 1913 to poor Russian Jewish émigrés, Guston moved with his family to California in 1919. Briefly attending the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1930, he was otherwise completely self-taught. Guston’s first precocious work, Mother and Child, was completed when he was only seventeen years of age. Influenced by the social and political landscape of the 1930s, his earliest works evoked the stylized forms of Giorgio de Chirico and Pablo Picasso, social realist motifs of the Mexican muralists, and classical properties of Italian Renaissance frescoes of Piero della Francesca and Masaccio that he had seen only in reproduction. Painted in Mexico with another young artist, the huge fresco The Struggle Against War and Fascism drew national attention in the US. Guston’s success continued in the WPA, a Depression-era government program that commissioned American artists to create murals in public buildings. While not widely known today, the young artist’s early experiences as a mural painter allowed a development of narrative and scale that he would draw upon in his late figurative work. In the early 1940s, as the WPA program was ending, Guston found work teaching at universities in the Midwestern United States. In his studio, he was working in oils on easel paintings that were more personal and smaller in scale, focusing on portraits and allegories, like Martial Memory and If This Be Not I. His first solo exhibition in Iowa was well received and, within a few years, he was offered his first solo show in New York City. Guston was awarded a Prix de Rome, allowing him to leave teaching and spend a year in Italy, studying firsthand the Italian masters he loved. By the time he had finished The Tormentors, Guston’s move to abstraction was all but complete. On his return from Italy, he continued dividing his time between the artists’ colony of Woodstock in Upstate New York and New York City, which was then emerging as the center of the postwar art world. He rented a studio on 10th Street, where abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko also worked. For Guston, success was never what mattered most. He was already impatient with the language of pure abstraction and experimenting with larger forms, using a limited palette of grays, pinks and blacks. As his forms became still more reduced, he stopped painting altogether and embarked on a series of simplified abstract “pure drawings” in brush or charcoal. At this juncture, Guston removed himself from the art scene in New York, living and working in Woodstock for the remainder of his life. Guston’s move ­was hardly a withdrawal. Freed from the distractions and formal constraints of the art world and the opinions of critics, he was able to experiment with new forms and to engage more deeply with the issues that mattered to him. The 1960s was a period of great social upheaval in the United States, characterized by assassinations and violence, civil rights and anti-war protests. “When the 1960s came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic,” Guston later said. “The war, what was happening to America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines...

Category

1970s Abstract Philip Guston Art

Materials

Lithograph, Offset

Monograph: Philip Guston (Hand signed, inscribed and dated to a major collector)
Monograph: Philip Guston (Hand signed, inscribed and dated to a major collector)

Monograph: Philip Guston (Hand signed, inscribed and dated to a major collector)

By Philip Guston

Located in New York, NY

Philip Guston Monograph: Philip Guston (Hand signed and inscribed to major collector by Philip Guston), 1980 Softback monograph (hand signed, inscribed and dated by Philip Guston to Mary Keesling) Warmly signed and inscribed by Philip Guston to Mary Keesling on the title page 10 1/4 × 9 × 3/4 inches If you're reading this description, then we hardly need to tell you, dear collector and Guston enthusiast, that autographed books...

Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Philip Guston Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Mixed Media, Lithograph, Offset

Gift of the Magi, Drawing by Philip Guston, 1946 Pencil on Paper
Gift of the Magi, Drawing by Philip Guston, 1946 Pencil on Paper

Gift of the Magi, Drawing by Philip Guston, 1946 Pencil on Paper

By Philip Guston

Located in New York, NY

This drawing was made by Guston in 1945–46 as one of a series of illustrations for O. Henry's short story The Gift of the Magi, commissioned and published by ARTnews in December 1946...

Category

1940s Abstract Expressionist Philip Guston Art

Materials

Pencil

Philip Guston, Untitled - Limited Edition Plate, Contemporary Art
Philip Guston, Untitled - Limited Edition Plate, Contemporary Art

Philip Guston, Untitled - Limited Edition Plate, Contemporary Art

By Philip Guston

Located in Hamburg, DE

Philip Guston (American, b. 1970) Untitled, 2023 Medium: Porcelain plate (fine bone china) Dimensions: 26.7 cm diameter (10 1/2 in) Edition of 250: Printed signature and edition deta...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Philip Guston Art

Materials

Porcelain

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Francis BaconBacon, Personnage Couche 1966, 1966

$476Sale Price|20% Off

H 28 in W 17.75 in

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Category

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Previously Available Items
Selection of Modernist Abstract Artwork or Gallery Wall
Selection of Modernist Abstract Artwork or Gallery Wall

Selection of Modernist Abstract Artwork or Gallery Wall

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Located in Atlanta, GA

Selection of abstract modern artwork or gallery wall, circa 1940s-1960s. They have all been framed in vintage gilt frames under new UV resistant glass. They are priced at $375 each. ...

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Philip Guston exhibition announcements set of four (vintage Philip Guston)
Philip Guston exhibition announcements set of four (vintage Philip Guston)

Philip Guston exhibition announcements set of four (vintage Philip Guston)

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Located in NEW YORK, NY

A set of four vintage Philip Guston announcement cards for 1982, 1983 and 1985 shows at Mckee Gallery, New York Each: Offset print on cardstock; dimensions: 7 x 9 (2), 8.5 x 6.5 and...

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1960s Contemporary Philip Guston Art

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Philip Guston art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Philip Guston art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Philip Guston in lithograph, ink, mixed media and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Philip Guston art, so small editions measuring 9 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Sam Gilliam, Mark di Suvero, and Abraham Rattner. Philip Guston art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $7,500 and tops out at $17,500, while the average work can sell for $12,500.

Artists Similar to Philip Guston

Questions About Philip Guston Art

  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Yes. Philip Guston, a Canadian American artist, is considered a contemporary artist. Contemporary art is generally defined as art produced during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Guston, who lived from 1913 to 1980, was a founding artist of the mid-century New York School movement and later helped pioneer the neo-expressionism movement. Shop a collection of Philip Guston art from some of the world’s top sellers on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Philip Guston is associated with two art movements. At the start of his career, his work reflected the characteristics of Social Realism, but he later shifted his focus to produce pieces that better fit the definition of Abstract Expressionism. You'll find a selection of Philip Guston art on 1stDibs.