Guston was a high-school friend of Jackson Pollock, who encouraged him to move to New York where Guston achieved acclaim in the early 1950s for his densely painted, shimmering abstractions. Like his contemporary Willem de Kooning, however, Guston was never fully convinced that abstraction did not have some figuration at its heart. In his paintings of the early 1960s such as Close-Up III, dark, moody forms take shape on an otherwise abstract and colorful ground, as if to foretell Guston's eventual return to comic-strip-like imagery and self-portraits in the late 1960s. "Everything has an object. Everything has a figure. The question is, what kind?" he told students at Brandeis University in 1966.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Close-Up III
Artist:Philip Guston (American (born Canada), Montreal 1913–1980 Woodstock, New York)
Date:1961
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:70 × 72 in. (177.8 × 182.9 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Lee V. Eastman, 1972
Accession Number:1972.281
Inscription: Signed, dated, and inscribed (verso): PHILIP GUSTON/ [underlined] "CLOSE–UP III"/ 1961/ 70" x 72"
Lee V. Eastman, New York (by 1962–72; his gift to MMA)
New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "Philip Guston," May 2–July 1, 1962, no. 90 (lent by Lee V. Eastman, Scarsdale, New York).
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. "Philip Guston," September 20–October 15, 1962, no. 87 (lent by Lee V. Eastman, Scarsdale, New York).
London. Whitechapel Gallery. "Philip Guston," January 17–February 17, 1963, no catalogue (checklist no. 90; lent by Lee. V. Eastman, Scarsdale, New York).
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. "Philip Guston," March 1–24, 1963, no. 87.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Philip Guston," May 15–June 23, 1963, no. 90.
Jewish Museum, New York. "Philip Guston: Recent Paintings and Drawings," January 12–February 12, 1966, no. 3 (lent by Mr. and Mrs. Lee V. Eastman, Scarsdale).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Philip Guston Drawings 1938–1972," July 11–September 4, 1973, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Accessions, 1967–1974," March 7–April 23, 1974, no catalogue.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Philip Guston," May 16–June 29, 1980, no. 36.
Washington, D. C. Corcoran Gallery of Art. "Philip Guston," July 20–September 9, 1980, no. 36.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. "Philip Guston," November 12, 1980–January 11, 1981, no. 36.
Denver Art Museum. "Philip Guston," February 25–April 26, 1981, no. 36.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Philip Guston," June 24–September 13, 1981, no. 36.
Bronx Museum of the Arts. "Return to the Figure: Three Studies—Philip Guston, Jean Helion, Irene Rice Pereira," April 7–August 28, 1988, no. 3.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. "Founders and Heirs of the New York School," January 25–March 16, 1997, no. 55.
Sendai. Miyagi Museum of Art. "Founders and Heirs of the New York School," April 5–May 25, 1997, no. 55.
Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki. "Founders and Heirs of the New York School," June 28–August 3, 1997, no. 55.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. "Philip Guston Retrospective," March 30–June 8, 2003, no. 51.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Philip Guston Retrospective," June 28–September 27, 2003, no. 51.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Philip Guston Retrospective," October 28, 2003–January 4, 2004, no. 51.
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Philip Guston Retrospective," January 24–April 12, 2004, no. 51.
Dore Ashton. The Unknown Shore: A View of Contemporary Art. Boston, 1962, p. 71, ill. p. 72, lists it in the collection of Lee V. Eastman.
H. H. Arnason. Philip Guston. Exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York, 1962, pp. 37, 44, no. 90, ill. p. 105 (color).
Dore Ashton. A Reading of Modern Art. Cleveland, 1969, fig. 20, lists it in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lee V. Eastman, New York.
Harold Rosenberg. "Liberation from Detachment." New Yorker 46 (November 7, 1970), p. 138.
Dore Ashton. A Reading of Modern Art. 2nd rev. ed. (1st ed., 1969). New York, 1971, fig. 19.
Harold Rosenberg. The De-Definition of Art. New York, 1972, ill. p. 137.
Henry Geldzahler in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1965–1975. New York, 1975, p. 220, ill., identifies it as the first abstract painting by Guston in the MMA's collection.
Dore Ashton. Yes, but... A Critical Study of Philip Guston. New York, 1976, pp. 129–30, ill. p. 127.
Ross Feld inPhilip Guston. Exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1980, pp. 20–21, 130, no. 36, colorpl. 34, states that Guston's abstract work comes to a literal "head" in this painting.
Benjamin Forgey. "Getting to Know Guston." Washington Star (July 20, 1980), p. E2.
Philip Guston. Ed. Henry T. Hopkins. Exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1980, p. 44.
Bernard Hanson. "Guston's Fine Lines and Gray Areas." Hartford Courant (August 23, 1981), p. G2.
Eugene Victor Thaw. "The Abstract Expressionists." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 44 (Winter 1986–87), p. 47, fig. 42 (color).
Robert Storr. Philip Guston. New York, 1986, p. 42, fig. 37 (color).
Joseph Ablow. "Philip Guston: The Last Paintings." Bostonia 60 (April/May 1986), p. 16.
Robert Zaller. "Philip Guston and the Crisis of the Image." Critical Inquiry 14 (Autumn 1987), p. 80.
Dore Ashton. "That is Not What I Meant at All: Why Philip Guston is Not Postmodern." Arts Magazine 63 (November 1988), p. 69, discusses the "Close-Up" series.
Dore Ashton. A Critical Study of Philip Guston. 2nd. ed. [1st ed., 1976]. Berkeley, 1990, pp. 129–30, ill. p. 127 [reprints Ref. Ashton 1976].
Didier Ottinger. Philip Guston (1913–1980): Oeuvres Sur Papier 1975–1980. Exh. cat., Musée de l'Abbaye Sainte-Croix. Les Sables-d'Olonne, 1995, ill. n.p.
David Anfam. "Telling Tales: Philip Guston in Retrospect." Artforum 41 (May 2003), p. 136.
Donald E. Sloan. “Why not revolution?”: The John Reed Club and Visual Culture. PhD diss., University of Kansas. Lawrence, Kans., 2004, p. 193, fig. 115.
David Anfam. "Guston's Trauma: Ideal/Abject." Go Figure! New Perspectives on Guston. Ed. Peter Benson Miller. New York, 2014, pp. 91–92.
Robert Storr. Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting. London, 2020, p. 64, fig. 80 (color).
Amanda Renshaw in Robert Storr. Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting. London, 2020, ill. p. 335 (color, installation view, Exh. San Francisco 1980).
Robin Pogrebin. "Met to Receive Trove of Philip Guston's Art." New York Times (December 15, 2022), p. C6.
The Guston Foundation, ed. Catalogue Raisonné. Online resource [gustoncrllc.org/home/catalogue_raisonne], 2024 (accessed), no. P61.004, ill. (color).
Philip Guston (American (born Canada), Montreal 1913–1980 Woodstock, New York)
1950
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