Guston in time : remembering Philip Guston / Ross Feld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Feld, Ross, 1947-2001.

Contributor:

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980--Appreciation.

Guston, Philip.

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980--Friends and associates.

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980.

Friends and associates.

Physical Description:

165 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Counterpoint, [2003]

Summary:

In the years following his controversial 1970 exhibition at the Marlborough Galleries, Philip Guston was generally viewed as yesterday's scandal, a maverick who had abandoned abstract expressionism and, with it, the adulation of the art world. Few paid serious attention to the disturbing, profound work he was producing in his Woodstock studio. So when Ross Feld, a young novelist and critic, wrote a penetrating review of Guston's latest show, the artist sent him a letter of appreciation: "I felt...as if we knew each other and had had many discussions about painting and literature. In a word -- I felt great recognition." Thus began a remarkable friendship. Feld, a frequent visitor to Guston's studio where the two men would talk late into the night, became Guston's intellectual sparring partner and sounding board -- "I'll shout it right out," Guston wrote to Feld, "you inspire me to paint again!" -- as well as the artist's most eloquent critic and champion. Guston in Time is Feld's final tribute, and it is at once a testament to a friendship, a provocative and richly nuanced study of one the twentieth century's most important artists, and a portrait of a remarkable character.

Feld illuminates Guston's key relationships, with wife Musa and composer Morton Feldman, and brings the man himself to life in all his exasperating complexity: "Omnivorous, narcissistic, brilliant, sometimes verbally fluent to the point of glibness and flattery, horridly lonely, someone for whom nothing was enough and too much at the same swamping moment." Feld's evocation of Guston's late, figurative works is equally memorable and acute. Feld's portrait of this "supernova of personality" captures, in a mosaic of brilliant images, Guston's grandiosity of spirit. Crafted with love and insight, this is an unforgettable remembrance of Guston and his art.

Contents:

1 Allegory 11

2 Web 19

4 Blue Light 39

5 Talking 53

6 Friend 65

7 If This Be Not I 83

8 Actor 95

Appendix The Philip Guston/Ross Feld Letters / Edited by Josh Rubins 109.

Notes:

"The Philip Guston/Ross Feld Letters": p. 109-163.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

1582432848

OCLC:

52091913