This monumentally large painting brings together many of the raw and visceral themes that characterize Philip Guston's return to figurative subject matter in the late 1960s. Prior to that he had been for many years one of the most lyrical abstractionists of Abstract Expressionism, a group that also included Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. The painting's poignant narrative of confrontation, struggle, and uncertainty is as ambiguous as it is compelling, with precedents in the social commentaries Guston painted during the 1930s and 1940s.

"The Street" is a serious investigation into states of disorder and confusion presented in the vernacular language of cartoon figures and naïve drawing. The composition is divided into three vertical sections, each depicting a different state of being: passive decay, violent aggression, and total disarray. At the right, a large trashcan is stuffed to overflowing with empty bottles, old strips of wood, a shoe, and other refuse. In the center is a barrage of disembodied limbs, hairy and paw-like, wielding trashcan lids as shields. These arms confront to the left a wave of skinny, interlocked legs whose movements seem thwarted by their own oversize shoes. Below, on the horizon line, which is the street itself, a pair of large spiders ominously sits poised for action.

Guston's work remained an intensely personal statement throughout its many transformations, often relying on his private iconography of images to convey ideas about the human condition and to express the artist's own fears and crises. As he wrote in 1974, his late paintings depict a "sort of Dante Inferno land." The unsettling color scheme of "The Street"—red, bright pink, and gunmetal gray—and its crude style of painting add to the sense of urgent turmoil and despair.

Signature: Signed (lower right): Philip Guston

Philip Guston, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 16 - June 29 1980; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., July 20 - September 9, 1980; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, November 12, 1980 - January 11, 1981; The Denver Art Museum, Colorado, February 25 - April 26, 1980; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 24 - September 13, 1981. Cat. No. 83 pl. 73 (illus. In color)

Art in Our Time, Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin, Oct. - Nov. 1980; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; University of Iowa Museum, Iowa; Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, TN; University Art Museum, University of Texas, Austin, TX. Cat. Illus. In color

Philip Guston: Paintings 1969-1980, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, Oct. 13 - Dec. 12 1982; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, January 13 - March 6, 1983; Kunsthalle, Basel, May 8 - June 19, 1983. Cat. No. 25 (illus.)

Philip Guston: The Late Works, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, August 18 - September 16, 1984; The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, September 27 - October 28, 1984; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, November 8 - December 30, 1984. Cat. No 27 (illus. in color)

Philip Guston: Retrospectiva de Pintura, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, March 1 - May 8, 1989; Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona, May 25 - July 16, 1989. Cat. No. 55 (illus. in color)

Philip Guston Retrospective, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX, March 30 - June 8, 2003; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 28 - September 27, 2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, October 27, 2003 - January 4, 2004; Royal Academy of Arts, January 24 - April 12, 2004. Cat. No. 113 (illus. in color).

Joseph Ablow, "New Beginning: The Last Paintings of Philip Guston," in Philip Guston: The Late Works. National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. (Australia: The Corporation, 1984). pp. 19, 42 (illus. in color), 64.

Michael Auping, et al. Philip Guston Retrospective. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, in association with Thames & Hudson, 2003. pp. 13, 241. Cat. No. 113 (illus. in color).

Ross Feld, et al. Philip Guston. George Braziller, Inc., New York, in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1981. Cat. No. 83, Plate 73. pp. 30-31, 33, 115 (illus. in color), 131.

Lisa Messinger, "Twentieth Century Art," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, No. 1983/1984, pp. 98 (illus. in color).

Mark Rosenthal, et al. Philip Guston: Retrospectiva de Pintura. Ministerio de Cultura, Spain. pp. 131 (illus. in color).

Nicholas Serota, et al. Philip Guston: Paintings 1969-1980. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1983. pp. 67 (illus.).

Robert Storr, "Philip Guston" in Modern Masters Series, vol. 11. (Cross River Press, Ltd, NY: 1986) pp. 82, 83 (illus.).

Eugene Victor Thaw, "The Abstract Expressionists," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Winter, 1986-1987), pp. 51 (illus. in color).

Post-War and Contemporary Art: Evening Sale, Christie's. Wednesday May 11, 2005
pp. 122 (illus. in color).