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The Guston Foundation

Account monitored by The Guston Foundation whose mission is to further the legacy of Philip Guston.

08/05/2026

“During the late 1960s, outward events had made deep incursions in Guston’s thought. They had much to do with the renunciation he announced in the shocking and now legendary exhibition of 1970. Immured in his Woodstock studio, Guston had be- gun to draw and paint grotesques, recognizable things-shoes, cars, junk (which he called "crappola"). and, as he always said, anything at all he saw around.” —Dore Ashton from the introduction “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations, by Clark Coolidge, page 6, published 2011 by UC Press

Philip Guston, High Heel, 1968. Acrylic on panel; 18 × 20 in. Private Collection London | Untitled (Shoe), 1968. Acrylic on panel; 20 × 18 in. Private Collection, NY | Untitled, 1968. Acrylic on panel; 16½ × 19½ in. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Bequest of Musa Guston | Untitled, 1968. Acrylic on panel; 16½ × 19½ in. Collection Unknown | Untitled, 1968. Acrylic on panel; 18 × 20 in. Promised gift of Musa Guston Mayer to The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Untitled (Shoe), 1968. Acrylic on panel; 17⅞ × 20 in. Private Collection | Untitled (Orange Shoe), 1971. Oil on paper; 19½ × 27¾ in. Private Collection

07/28/2026

Philip Guston’s Driving Around, 1970 is currently on view at the RISD Museum of Art in the installation, “Art and Design from 1900 to Now.”

From their website:
“This painting is one of many depictions artist Philip Guston made of members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist hate group that has been active in the US since the end of the Civil War. Guston presents these figures in a cartoonish way, holding their acts in contempt while recognizing their sinister presence in the American landscape.

In the 1970s, when Jolie Stahl was living and working in a studio in Boston, she met Guston, who was teaching at Boston University. Years later, Stahl acquired this painting. It joins another work by Guston in the RISD Museum collection, The Road, which was donated in 1992 by Guston’s widow, Musa.” –Dominic Molon, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art

Philip Guston, Driving Around, 1969. Oil on panel; 10 × 12 in. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Gift of Jolie Stahl; photo via on Instagram | The Road, 1972. Oil on canvas; 51¼ × 118¾ in. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Bequest of Musa Guston

06/27/2026

“A painting feels lived-out to me, not painted. That’s why one is changed by painting. In a rare magical moment, I never feel myself to be more than a trusting accomplice. So, the paintings aren’t pictures, but evidences — maybe documents, along the road you have not chosen, but are on nevertheless.” —Philip Guston

Philip Guston was born on this day in 1913 in Montreal, Canada (as Phillip Goldstein), the youngest of seven children. His parents Louis Goldstein and Rachel Ehrenleib were Jewish Russian immigrants from present-day Ukraine who settled in Canada c. 1905.

Our recently-relaunched website features a detailed Chronology section, where readers can explore Guston’s life and work year by year. https://philipguston.org/chronology/the-early-years

06/12/2026

A Philip Guston fan from the Netherlands visited the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, but was disappointed to find that a work in their collection, The Door (1978), was not on view. His strategy of writing to the museum over the past few years has recently been successful—The Door is now on view!

Good to know that art lovers can request that their favorite works from a museum collection be displayed.

From Stedelijk Museum’s post: “'The Door' by Philip Guston 👁️ After his breakthrough in the 1940s, Guston became one of the most important abstract expressionists in New York in the following decade.

The political and social unrest of the late 1960s prompted him to start creating bold paintings. Through a diverse range of imagery of figures and everyday objects, he addressed difficult topics, such as violence, racism, and human shortcomings. Although his vision was met with resistance at the time, Guston is now honored as a fundamental influence on contemporary art.”

Guston’s better-known work, Painting, Smoking, Eating (1973) is currently on view as it often is.

Philip Guston, The Door, 1978. Oil on canvas; 68 × 109 in. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, acquired with the generous support of the Vereniging Rembrandt and Mrs. Musa Guston, Woodstock, NY, 1983

HASHTAGS

06/04/2026

This month’s issue of features ’s review of the exhibition, Life with P., at Hauser & Wirth’s 18th Street space:

“Philip Guston’s late paintings can be dense, dark, and apocalyptic, but Life with P. shows this period in a different light by setting some selected works from the artist’s last decade in the context of daily life. The exhibition grounds these works in Guston’s deep relationship to his wife Musa McKim, whose newly published journals, including her own drawings and poems, provide context—a quotidian stream of consciousness in which language and vision routinely merge. The show includes four large paintings that address issues related to marriage, but smaller paintings and works on paper predominate…”

The exhibition coincides with the release of a new book by the same title—an illustrated compilation of Musa McKim’s previously unpublished journals from 1966–1976, edited and contextualized by the couple’s daughter, Musa Mayer. On view through July 10, 2026.

Read the full article in The Brooklyn Rail: https://bit.ly/4ocgghh

Installation views, courtesy .

05/23/2026

Painter Steven Sloman often brought his dog Mookley to Woodstock when photographing Philip Guston’s work. Although the Gustons didn’t have pets themselves, they enjoyed having friends’ pets visit their home.

Philip Guston, Mookley drawings, 1972. Pencil on paper.

05/20/2026

“I had no illusions that I could ever influence anybody politically. That would be silly. I mean, this is not the medium. Nor the outlet, wherever, when you show them. No. I think the forms became exciting to me, and I wanted to see if I could include those forms in my work. I would make sketches like that, dozens. Start the paintings. Big fighting in the streets. But they changed in the painting, naturally. It goes through many transformations. In fact, I have one or two I brought along to show you what I was painting at the time [for example, Caught, 1970]. I conceived of these figures as very pathetic, tattered, full of seams. I don't know how to explain it. Something pathetic about brutality, and comic also. I mean, the mixture of emotions.” —Philip Guston

Caught (1970) is on display at the Denver Art Museum next to a short video from “Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston”—the exhibition that originated at The Jewish Museum, New York, and traveled to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles earlier this year. Watch the full video: https://bit.ly/4dnFsh0

Philip Guston, Caught, 1970. Oil on canvas; 66 × 79 in. Denver Art Museum, Bequest of Musa Guston | Quote from Clark Coolidge, “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations,” On Drawing, 1974, page 264, published 2011 by UC Press.

05/10/2026

Philip was the youngest of Rachel Goldstein’s seven children. He made this sketch when he was 18 years old and still living at home.

Philip Guston, Mother, 1931. Ink and pencil on paper; 11¼ × 20¾ in. Promised gift of Musa Guston Mayer to The Metropolitan Museum of Art

05/06/2026

In conjunction with their current Guston exhibition, Hauser & Wirth 18th Street is showing looping screenings of ‘Philip Guston: A Life Lived.’ In this documentary film directed by Michael Blackwood and produced in 1981, Philip Guston reviews his entire career and speaks candidly about the philosophy of his painting.

All screenings are free, and the film will play on loop starting at 10:00 a.m. every Saturday through June 20 in the amphitheater at Hauser & Wirth 18th Street. Last screening each Saturday begins at approximately 4:46 p.m. No registration is required. *Please note there will be no screenings on 6 June.* More information: https://www.hauserwirth.com/events/screening-room-philip-guston-a-life-lived/

Photo: ‘Philip Guston: A Life Lived’ (1981), dir. Michael Blackwood, produced by Michael Blackwood Productions

04/29/2026

If you’re in San Francisco, five large Philip Guston paintings are on view on Floor 4 in Ways of Seeing, part of Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10. “Ways of Seeing” features a series of monographic galleries dedicated to 14 artists whose works reflect a variety of mediums.

Philip Guston, As It Goes, 1978. Oil on canvas; 76 × 102¼ in. | Brushes, 1978. Oil on canvas; 42 × 48 in. | Rug III, 1976. Oil on canvas; 69 × 110½ in. | Late Fall, 1963. Oil on canvas; 68 × 77½ in. | The Street, 1956. Oil on canvas; 76 × 72 in. | All from The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

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