Untitled

Acclaimed a star abstract expressionist of the New York
School in the 1950s and early 1960s, Philip Guston moved away from abstraction to narration in the late 1960s. Turning to his daily life as subject matter, he created a series of small pictures of ordinary objects around him: cups, lightbulbs, shoes, books, clocks. The series comprised a highly personal new visual alphabet. The book and boot in this pair of important transitional paintings are subjects that reappear frequently in Guston’s late work.

(2003)