Bad Times

Philip GustonWW-1970-016185

1970·Oil on canvas·182.9 × 289.6 cm (72 × 114 in.)

<p>In the late 1960s, painter Philip Guston made a radical shift. Previously acclaimed for lush, luminous abstract works, he turned to crude, awkward renderings of often-sinister figures and objects. “I got sick and tired of that purity,” he declared. “I wanted to tell stories.” In an outpouring of figurative work near the end of his career that employed recurring imagery such as cartoonish Ku Klux Klansmen and piles of prone legs with the soles of their shoes exposed, Guston addressed sociopolitical issues as well as his own artistic conflicts. Starkly titled, <em>Bad Times</em> is dominated by brushy, almost pearlescent passages of paint that seem at odds with, but that also ground, a graphic scene of violence or its aftermath.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1970
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 182.9 × 289.6 cm (72 × 114 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Philip Guston

Artist

Philip Guston

Painting

Philip Guston, born in Montreal, Canada, in 1913, was the son of Russian Jews who immigrated to America to escape persecution. In 1919, the family moved to Los Angeles, but hardship pursued the family; poor professional prospects for Guston’s father coupled with racism, specifically related to the rise of the Klu Klux Klan, led to tenuous financial security. These early difficulties, compounded by his father’s suicide when he was seven, left an indelible mark on the artist. He began work on his first paintings at age 14, and in 1927 he was enrolled at Manual Arts High School in Los Angles (where he later met and befriended Jackson Pollock). While there, he studied Cubism as well as mysticism, and in 1930 received a scholarship to attend Otis Art Institute—the following year he had is first solo exhibition.

Montreal, QC, Canada

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