Painter

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Painter

Artist Philip Guston (American, 1913-1980)

Publisher Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl

Date1983 (1980)

DimensionsOverall: 31 15/16 x 42 1/2 in. (81.2 x 107.9 cm);
Image: 29 1/2 x 40 in. (74.9 x 101.6 cm)

MediumLithograph

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineAmerican Art Fund

Object number

1986.98

Not on View

Label TextPhilip Guston began collaborating with the printmaking workshop Gemini GEL in November 1979, working on transfer paper and aluminum plates under the guidance of printer Serge Lozingot. Guston drew the design for this print in late 1979–early 1980, but it was published posthumously in 1983. At the time of Guston’s death on June 7, 1980, Gemini had several editions which remained unsigned, including Painter. These were numbered by Gemini and embossed with an estate stamp authorized by Guston’s widow, Musa. Guston's lithographs incorporate the vocabulary of his late paintings, which includes rusty railroad nails, old shoes and shoe heels, bare light bulbs, old automobiles, clothing, and the smoking of cigarettes. In works made after 1969 Guston renounced his previous interest in abstraction in favor of “a world of tangible things, images, subjects, stories like the way art always was.” This lithograph contains a mixture of reality, fantasy, caricature, and naturalistic observation which characterizes all of Guston's late work. It is a celebration of life with both pathos and humor.Published ReferencesPhilip Guston 3 (publisher’s promotional brochure), Los Angeles, Gemini G.E.L., 1983, no. 19 (repr.).

Michael, Semff ed., Philip Guston Prints: Catalogue Raisonne, Munich, Sieveking Verlag, 2015, (repr.) no. 40, cover.