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Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

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Philip Guston

The Patient

1979

On View in James M. Kemper Gallery, Room 2

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While recovering from a near-fatal heart attack in 1979, Philip Guston painted this canvas, in which a limb-like appendage, patched with scrap metal and studded with bent nails in the place of fingers, extends toward the keyhole of a closed door. It is unclear if the object in the hole is a key or a nail, raising questions about whether the door can ever be opened. Is it a portal, or a barrier to what lies beyond? The painting may reflect Guston’s personal experiences with illness and aging as well as a more general anxiety about an artist’s search for meaning. Stylistically it is representative of the cartoonish, figurative paintings Guston made in the final two decades of his life. The artist began his career as a figurative painter, took up gestural abstraction around midcentury, and then returned to representation in the late 1960s. Using thick outlines and fleshy pink and pastel colors, he painted with a vocabulary of repeated images, including cigarette butts, keys, paintbrushes, and disembodied limbs. Through these symbols, Guston commented—often with dark humor—on contemporary politics, the fate of humanity, and, as seen here, his own life. [Permanent Collection Label, 2023]

  • Artist Philip Guston (American, 1913–1980)
  • Title The Patient
  • Date 1979
  • Medium Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions unframed | 48 x 60 in.
  • Credit line Bequest of Musa Guston, 1992
  • Object number WU 1992.18
  • Currently on View James M. Kemper Gallery, Room 2

Ugly: An Alternative Look at Western Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 06/05/2013 - 07/29/2013

Teaching Gallery exhibition
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/23/2004 - 03/28/2004

Twentieth Century Art from the Washington University Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/28/1994 - 03/27/1994

1992
Musa Guston

Inscription Recto, lower left, in gray paint:

Inscription Verso, upper left, in black marker:

Label Verso, center left on stretcher, white rectangular label, in black marker:

Label Verso, center on stretcher, white rectangular label, text printed in black:

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.

Related Content

go to Health, Illness, and Medicine page
1992_18.tif
Theme

Health, Illness, and Medicine

go to Teaching Gallery exhibition page
no image
Exhibitions

Teaching Gallery exhibition

January 23, 2004–March 28, 2004
go to Twentieth Century Art from the Washington University Collection page
no image
Exhibitions

Twentieth Century Art from the Washington University Collection

January 28, 1994–March 27, 1994
go to Ugly: An Alternative Look at Western Art page
no image
Exhibitions

Ugly: An Alternative Look at Western Art

June 05, 2013–July 29, 2013

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