Late Afternoon

/ Art Escapes

The painting's foreground is reddish pink. A red "horizon" line delineates this section and a pale pink background. A linear arrangement of Images/objects stand at the horizon. Most are recognizable and recurrent Guston objects: a pair of skinny, upturned legs in hobnail shoes, a knife blade, portion of a brick chimney or wall, a tool handle, the back of a stretched, oval canvas. Other areas are simply shapes or areas of paint. A red-outlined rectangle hovers at the painting's top left. Rendered in a palate of queasy rose and gray with punches of green, orange, and ochre, this cryptic configuration is compositionally direct, like a comic panel.
Philip Guston Late Afternoon 1972 oil on canvas Bequest of Musa Guston 199260 image © Estate of Philip Guston

 

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“I have always been drawn to this painting because of Guston’s range of pinks, and the way he worked and reworked the surface. Philip Guston wrote, “Look at any inspired painting. It’s like a gong sound; it puts you in a state of reverberation.” This is exactly what this painting does to me. Pink was a color I struggled to use in my own work for a long time, and now I seem to use it every chance I get.”- @alex.mcclurg, Associate Preparator