Philip Guston (1913-1980)

“For it was Guston’s extraordinary ability to question the assumptions of his own and other art and continually probe himself, which ultimately kept his art so fresh and ‘young’. Guston was painting ‘new images’ while most of us were looking the other way. When we caught up and tried to draw him into the history of art as it evolved in the seventies he simply drove deeper and deeper into himself and produced work which defines connection with young artists working in New York or Germany or Italy, and compels us to thin instead of Goya, El Greco and Beckmann.”
N. Serota, Philip Guston: Paintings 1969-80, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1982, p. 7.