Museums Postpone Philip Guston Retrospectives

Earlier this week, I wrote about museum news items in New York. Today, I’ll look at topics in Washington.

I don’t think the world’s crying for another Philip Guston retrospective. Guston (1913–1980) is the very last gasp of the post-war New York School, a second-tier abstract expressionist who changed styles in the 1960s. He and Jackson Pollock studied together in the 1930s. It’s an unusual coincidence that he and Pollock, one of founding fathers of this style, are both in the news, and so many years after they left us. A nice Pollock painting sold earlier this week at Christie’s for $13 million, controversially and wrongly sold by the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse to buy work by artists of color and women.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Earlier this week, I wrote about museum news items in New York. Today, I’ll look at topics in Washington.

I don’t think the world’s crying for another Philip Guston retrospective. Guston (1913–1980) is the very last gasp of the post-war New York School, a second-tier abstract expressionist who changed styles in the 1960s. He and Jackson Pollock studied together in the 1930s. It’s an unusual coincidence that he and Pollock, one of founding fathers of this style, are both in the news, and so many years after they left us. A nice Pollock painting sold earlier this week at Christie’s for $13 million, controversially and wrongly sold by the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse to buy work by artists of color and women.