The Room

© The Estate of Philip Guston
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The Room

Canada, 1954-1955
Paintings
Oil on canvas
71 7/8 × 60 in. (182.56 × 152.4 cm)
Museum Purchase, Contemporary Art Council Fund (M.63.36)
Modern Art
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Label

Philip Guston’s paintings from the 1950s feature heavily built-up surfaces, with brighter, more vibrant colors clustered toward the center of the canvas, against a muted background....
Philip Guston’s paintings from the 1950s feature heavily built-up surfaces, with brighter, more vibrant colors clustered toward the center of the canvas, against a muted background. Guston was active in the New York School, a group of Abstract Expressionist painters working in New York in the 1950s. Unlike the so-called Action painters of the group, who employed dramatic gestures as they painted, Guston worked slowly and methodically, building up multiple layers of paint. He often described the artistic process as a mysterious one, arguing that one need not understand what the picture is or how exactly it comes into being to appreciate it.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Ashton, Dore. Philip Guston. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1960.
  • Woodstock Artists Association: One Hundred Years of Community and Art. Woodstock, NY: Woodstock Artists Association, 2019.
  • Ashton, Dore. Philip Guston. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1960.
  • Woodstock Artists Association: One Hundred Years of Community and Art. Woodstock, NY: Woodstock Artists Association, 2019.
  • Wallock, Leonard, editor. New York, Culture Capital of the World, 1940-1965. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.
  • Arnason, H. H., and Harry F. Guggenheim. Philip Guston. New York: The Solomon R. Guggengheim Museum, New York, 1962.
  • Hopkins, Henry T., ed. Illustrated Handbook of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  West Germany:  Bruder Hartmann, 1965.

  • Tuchman, Maurice, editor. New York School, The First Generation: Paintings of the 1940s and 1950s. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965.

    View this publication in LACMA's Reading Room

  • John Marin:  1870-1953.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970.
  • Tuchman, Maurice.  Ten Years of Contemporary Art Council Acquisitions: Inaugurating The New Contemporary Art Galleries.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1973.
  • Meyer, James. Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959-1971. Washington: National Gallery of Art; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
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