Life with P.: Philip Guston, Paintings and Drawings 1964 – 1978

Life with P. illuminates an intimate and rarely observed facet of Philip Guston’s art. While this groundbreaking 20th century master is best known for raw, painterly explorations of sociopolitical power and sobering inspections of human nature, this exhibition showcases a selection of Guston’s more intimate paintings and works on paper in which Guston ruminates on his marriage to poet Musa McKim and their lives together in Woodstock. The works on view include a collection of Guston’s ‘Poem Pictures,’ drawings that respond to his wife’s poetry, as well as three large-scale figurative paintings that have never before been exhibited. ‘Life with P.’ coincides with the release of a new book from Hauser & Wirth Publishers by the same name, an illustrated compilation of Musa McKim’s previously unpublished journals from 1966 – 1976, contextualized by the couple’s daughter, Musa Mayer. Philip Guston (1913 – 1980) is one of the great luminaries of twentieth-century art. His commitment to producing work from genuine emotion and lived experience ensures its enduring impact. Guston’s legendary career spanned a half century, from 1930 to 1980. His paintings—particularly the liberated and instinctual forms of his late work—continue to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of contemporary painters.