KETTLES, KLANSMEN, THE SOLES OF SHOES, stray limbs and loose irons; colours by turns as vivid as children’s picture books or as thick and black as a starless night. This is just the smallest slice of what is in store at the Philip Guston retrospective at Tate Modern, the first of its kind on UK soil in 20 years.
Laid out chronologically, visitors will explore the Montreal-born artist’s 50-year career which started as a Los Angeles schoolboy and ended as a recluse in upstate New York.
Guston’s biography is extraordinary and his reach, immeasurable. He was largely self-taught; his work was informed variously by cartoon imagery, European Old Masters painting, surrealism and Mexican muralism. His own drawings and paintings are all shot throughover 40 years after his death, hard to categorise.
