Philip Guston

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
Private Collection, California
James Goodman Gallery, Inc., New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in November 1982

New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Philip Guston, December 1959 - January 1960, cat. no. 22, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. There are artist's pinholes along the edges and a few small creases along the edges and corners. The unpainted areas of the sheet have yellowed slightly with age. Additionally, there is minimal evidence of fine and stable craquelure in the most heavily impostoed areas of paint. Framed under glass.
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A member of the New York School, Guston delved into an aesthetic exploration of non-objective painting in the 1950s, at a time when Abstract Expressionism asserted itself as a leading movement in American painting. Refusing to accept predetermined truisms about the creative process, Guston slowly transitioned from the Social Realist roots which had defined his early career into a unique brand of abstraction in the late 1940's. With its creamy consistency and feathery brushstrokes Late Afternoon is a abuzz with the energy of all that is abudding and new. An artist whose titles were less associated with their imagery than their aura, Late Afternoon is about "the suspended state in which we encounter" the work itself. "Emblems of immanence, each image hovers between presence and absence, focus and dissolution," (Robert Storr, Philip Guston, Modern Masters Series, New York, 1991, p. 38).

In the present work, we witness the gradual dissolution of the delicate syntax of his painting from the earlier half of the decade. His brushwork becomes more agitated and his color palette, less subdued resulting in hints of figurative elements, such as the yellow form reminiscent of a sun. A celebrated formalist, even a work as heavily abstracted as the present retains clarity and a centralized composition. The block- like shapes which once clustered in the center of his early figurative pieces seem to reappear in Late Afternoon. Upon close inspection the thick buttery impasto seems to separate and translate into the separation of figure and ground and slowly but surely forms seem to emerge. As such, this work exemplifies Guston's mature exploration of abstraction and its implied emotive possibilities in a rich celebration of texture color and paint.