Philip Guston

David McKee, Inc., New York
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Gala Gala II, May 16, 1986, lot 19
PaineWebber Group Inc., New York (acquired from the above sale)
Acquired by the present owner from the above

This work is in good condition overall. The edges of the sheet are slightly unevenly cut. There are four repaired tears along the bottom edge, the largest of which measures 1 1/2 inches in length. Hinged verso to the matte along the top edge. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Rising to early fame as a leading Abstract Expressionist artist, the dramatic stylistic changes made over the course of Philip Guston's career revealed the paradoxical nature of the movement that promoted artists' individuality while reinforcing a strict orthodoxy. Like other AbEx artists, in the 1940s Guston began his career with a more figural pictorial style, but by the early 1950s, he had developed an AbEx style that drew favorable comparisons to Mondrian's grids, even if his renown did not reach the level of his friend Jackson Pollock. Nevertheless, Guston felt it necessary to cast off the constraints of the AbEx movement in pursuit of "absolute artistic truth" and began incorporating symbolically coded figural elements into his works that often recalled many of his themes from the 1940s. Despite art world resistance to the radical changes in his work, Guston's protean talents led to repeated success in each stylistic period. The medium that served as the bridge between these artistic periods was drawing. From 1952-54 during which Midnight (1953) was produced, Guston used his works on paper as a tool for exploring the limits of expressive mark making and were crucial to his artistic development.

Despite his inclusion in the group, Guston resisted the autographical nature of the AbEx process and its imposition of the artist's will on canvas. Guston described his alternative approach as "on a lucky day a surprising balance of forms and spaces will appear and I feel the drawing making itself, the image taking hold." Guston's more passive process echoed the logic of "noncomposition" advocated by composer John Cage, who Guston met in 1940. The rejection of composition can be traced to Cage and Guston's interest in Zen Buddhism and the concept of the indexical mark, which prioritized randomness and self-awareness of one's trace on the physical environment. An iconic example of this logic in practice was Cage and Robert Rauschenberg's collaboration, Automobile Tire Print (1953), created by running an inked tire across a long sheet of paper. The broad black tread mark bears a striking visual similarity to the aggressive vertical stripes in Midnight despite the use of two radically different methods of applying ink to paper. Undoubtedly, Guston's drawings would later influence the work of Cy Twombly who, in the second half of the 1950s, used his mark making to push beyond the AbEx paradigm.