Photo: Spike Mafford / Zocalo Studios. Courtesy of the Friday Foundation

The Painter

1976

American, 1913-1980

Following a two-decade commitment to abstraction in the 1950s and 1960s, Guston returned to figuration. Influenced by the Vietnam War and the police brutality at the Democratic National convention in 1968, a graphic cartoon-like style emerged in the 1970s. Guston intended for the banality of this style to contrast with the sinister and haunting symbolism of his subjects: hooded figures, piles of shoes, and severed limbs. The role of the artist as witness, chronicler, observer, and participant was a recurring theme, and The Painter is a stark example. Watchful, the artist peers at us and the world at large from behind a wall. Guston commented in deadpan fashion: “Well, this is a self-portrait. I had been painting all night. I went into the john, looked in the mirror, and saw that my eyes were all bloodshot. I came back picked up a small brush, dipped it in red, and made my eyes bloodshot. Then the painting was finished. You see, I look at my paintings, speculate about them. They baffle me, too. That’s all I’m painting for.”

Oil on canvas

74 x 116 in. (188 x 294.6 cm)

Gift of the Friday Foundation in honor of Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis

2020.14.11

Provenance: The artist; Estate of the artist; [David McKee Gallery, New York]; purchased from gallery by Jane and Richard E. Lang, Seattle, Washington, 1982; Friday Foundation, Seattle, Washington, 2018; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2020

Photo: Spike Mafford / Zocalo Studios. Courtesy of the Friday Foundation

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryWaltham, Massachusetts, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Aspects of the 70s: Mavericks, May 22 - June 29, 1980. No cat. no., reproduced.

New York, New York, David McKee Gallery, [Inaugural Exhibition], October - November 1981.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Richard and Jane Lang Collection, February 2 - April 1, 1984. Cat. no. 16, pp. 31-32, reproduced.

Berlin, Germany, Martin-Gropius-Bau, American Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1913–1993, May 8 - July 25, 1993 (London, England, Royal Academy of Arts, September 16 - December 12, 1993). Cat. no. 227, reproduced.

Fort Worth, Texas, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Philip Guston, March 30 - June 8, 2003 (San Francisco, California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 28 - September 17, 2003; New York, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 27, 2003 - January 4, 2004; London, England, Royal Academy of Arts, January 24 - April 12, 2004). Cat. no. 103, p. 63, reproduced pl. 103.

Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, SAM at 75: Building a Collection for Seattle, May 5 - September 9, 2007.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Frisson: The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Collection, October 15, 2021 - November 27, 2022. Text by Robert Storr. No cat. no., pp. 22, 35, 170-175, 187, reproduced pp. 24 (fig. 12), 171 (pl. 19), 183.

Published ReferencesIshikawa, Chiyo, ed. A Community of Collectors: 75th Anniversary Gifts to the Seattle Art Museum. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2008; ill. p. 39.

Storr, Robert. Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., 2020; pp. 154, 157, no. 161, ill.

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