The WPA sponsored the creation of tens of thousands of murals in government-owned buildings across the country. Guston’s study for one such mural—for the Queensbridge Houses Community Center in Queens, New York—explores themes of urban poverty, idleness, and pollution through references to depression and death. The scene in the foreground, of children wielding a repurposed trash can lid and other urban debris as weapons in their play fight, is the only motif to appear in the realized mural, whose focus shifted to community activities, such as sports and dance, projecting a less ominous tone than that of this study.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Untitled (Study for Queensbridge Housing Project Mural)
Artist:Philip Guston (American (born Canada), Montreal 1913–1980 Woodstock, New York)
Date:1939
Medium:Colored pencil and ink on paper
Dimensions:15 × 24 3/4 in. (38.1 × 62.9 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Promised Gift of Musa Guston Mayer
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): PHILLIP/GUSTON 1939/PORTION OF DESIGN FOR MURAL ON HOUSING
the artist, Woodstock, N. Y. (1939–d. 1980); his widow, Musa Guston, Woodstock, N. Y. (1980–d. 1992); their daughter, Musa Guston Mayer, New York (from 1992; her promised gift to MMA)
New York World's Fair. "American Art Today," April 30–October 31, 1939.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Philip Guston," May 16–June 29, 1980.
Washington, D. C. Corcoran Gallery of Art. "Philip Guston," July 20–September 9, 1980.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. "Philip Guston," November 12, 1980–January 11, 1981.
Denver Art Museum. "Philip Guston," February 25–April 26, 1981.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Philip Guston," June 24–September 13, 1981.
Woodstock, N.Y. Historical Society of Woodstock. "Woodstock Artists and the Federal Art Projects of the WPA Era," August 24–October 5, 1985.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "The Drawings of Philip Guston," September 8–November 1, 1988.
Amsterdam. Museum Overholland. "Philip Guston (The Drawings of Philip Guston)," January 14–March 12, 1989.
Barcelona. Centre Cultural de la Fundació Caixa de Pensions. "Dibuixos: Philip Guston," March 30–May 14, 1989.
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. "The Drawings of Philip Guston," May 29–July 23, 1989.
Dublin. Douglas Hyde Gallery. "The Drawings of Philip Guston," August 9–September 16, 1989.
Rome. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. "Philip Guston: Opere Su Carta 1933–1980," October 11–November 26, 1989.
Iowa City. University of Iowa Museum of Art. "Philip Guston: Working Through the Forties," January 25–March 16, 1997, no. 1 (as "Portion of Design For Mural on Housing," lent by The Estate of Philip Guston, Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York)).
Greenville, S.C. Greenville County Museum of Art. "Philip Guston: Working Through the Forties," April 9–June 29, 1997, no. 1.
Utica, N.Y. Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art. "Philip Guston: Working Through the Forties," November 15, 1997–January 4, 1998, no. 1.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945," February 17, 2020–January 31, 2021.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Philip Guston Now," May 1–September 11, 2022.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Philip Guston Now," October 23, 2022–January 15, 2023.
Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Art. "Philip Guston Now," March 2–August 27, 2023.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s," September 5–December 10, 2023, not in catalogue.
"These Painters & Sculptors Passed the Jury." Art Digest 13, N. Y. World's Fair Special Number (June 1, 1939), p. 32, calls it "The City Slum".
Michèle Cone. The Roots and Routes of Art in the 20th Century. New York, 1975, p. 173, calls it "City Slum".
Carrie Rickey. "Gust, Gusto, Guston." Artforum 19 (October 1980), ill. p. 36.
Ralph Toucatt. "Metamorphosis: The Art of Philip Guston." Threepenny Review 1 (Fall 1980), p. 24, calls it "Portion of Design for Mural on Housing".
Nicholas Serota, ed. Philip Guston: Paintings 1969–1980. Exh. cat., Whitechapel Art Gallery. London, 1982, ill. p. 59, calls it "Design for Queensbridge Housing Project".
Paul Brach. "An Act of Salvation." Art in America 77 (January 1989), p. 134, ill. p. 132.
Ron Kaal. "Twee Kanten Van Hetzelfde Gezicht: Portret van Philip Guston, de schilder van een steenklomp met een groot cyclopisch oog en een samenleving die gereduceerd is tot afval." HP (January 21, 1989), p. 45.
Tom Patterson. "Guston's '40s Works Frame His Future." Charlotte Observer (May 18, 1997), p. 1F, calls it "Portion of Design for Mural on Housing".
Michael E. Shapiro inPhilip Guston Retrospective. Exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Fort Worth, 2003, pp. 30–31, reprints Ref. Shapiro 1997.
Mitchell Abidor. "Hope and Despair in the American Socialist Movements of the 1930s: 'Art for the Millions' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." publicseminar.org. October 2, 2023.
Karen Wilkin. "Yesterday's Tomorrow." New Criterion 42 (December 2023), p. 32.
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