01 Philip Guston

Artist Philip Guston was part of the New York School art movement including artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

In the mid 60’s he broke away from abstract expressionism, moving towards a more figurative, cartoonish, often autobiographical style of painting. ‘I think a painter has two choices,’ he said. ‘He paints the world or himself.’

In 1971 Guston began producing a series of drawings mocking then president Richard Nixon. The brilliant satirical drawings were Guston’s reaction to the state of global politics and horrors of the Vietnam War, questioning his role as an artist in such troubled times.