Couple in Bed

Philip GustonWW-1977-048842

1977·Oil on canvas·206.2 × 240.3 cm (81 1/8 × 94 5/8 in.)

An established painter of some of the most poetic Abstract Expressionist painting of the late 1950s, Guston gradually abandoned abstraction in the 1960s in favor of seemingly crude, cartoonish, images drawn from memory. In Couple in Bed, Guston lays in bed with his wife, Musa, their faces pressed together as one in the manner of Brancusi's The Kiss. Here the artist holds his brushes as tightly as he does his wife, who in May of 1977 suffered a series of debilitating strokes.

Catalogue

Year: 1977
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 206.2 × 240.3 cm (81 1/8 × 94 5/8 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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