Philip Guston.
Seeking the New

Philip Guston (1913–1980) is among the most important and independent US-American artists of the mid-20th century. His work is marked by a constant search for renewal: his artistic development began with social realist paintings and murals, before he turned to abstract expressionism that was on the rise in New York at the time.

In the early 1970s he shocked the New York scene by returning to figurative painting. Whether his painting was figurative or abstract, Guston’s attention was always devoted to the finding of form. Drawing was his primary means to that end: it served as a field of experimentation and a tool of research through which he explored new modes of expression, prepared the ground for new phases in his work and resolved formal problems.

‘I draw constantly when I paint. I’ll take a week off and do hundreds of drawings. It’s a form of germination. […] Sometimes I make sketches of paintings, plan it out and change little in the doing of it. At others I start with nothing in my mind.’ Philip Guston, 1978 

The largest retrospective in Switzerland so far stresses the pivotal role of drawing within Guston’s work as a whole. With some 65 paintings and 110 drawings, the exhibition addresses Guston’s working process and at the same time draws attention to his engagement with the social and political upheavals of his time.

Curator: Fabienne Eggelhöfer