Philip Guston installation view Tate Liverpool 2002
Philip Guston (1913-1980) was one of the most influential and important American painters of the twentieth century. He was closely associated with Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s and later in his career became a major figurative painter. This display charts Guston's dramatic move from abstraction to figuration.
A significant amount of his work deals with issues concerning the Holocaust and the political upheaval in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Despite the serious concerns with which Guston engages, his work has a cartoon-like humour and painterly beauty.
