Art Review: Philip Guston Exhibition at Boston MFA

Philip Guston Now has risen from limbo — after likely appeasement of protesters, excision of who knows what, and augmented by interpretation, all having to do with race in Boston, where he never lived — to have what I thought was a good run at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston during the summer. The big exhibition, a retrospective of the career of the eccentric, erratic Guston (1913–80), goes next to the Houston MFA and the National Gallery in Washington before it ends at Tate Modern in London.

It’s organized by all four prestigious museums and revisits — and celebrates — Guston, among our big-beast artists, at least in terms of ink and chatter spilled. In my time as a student and young curator, Guston, along with Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, were the three most inspiring dead artists, at least among art students.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

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

Philip Guston Now has risen from limbo — after likely appeasement of protesters, excision of who knows what, and augmented by interpretation, all having to do with race in Boston, where he never lived — to have what I thought was a good run at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston during the summer. The big exhibition, a retrospective of the career of the eccentric, erratic Guston (1913–80), goes next to the Houston MFA and the National Gallery in Washington before it ends at Tate Modern in London.

It’s organized by all four prestigious museums and revisits — and celebrates — Guston, among our big-beast artists, at least in terms of ink and chatter spilled. In my time as a student and young curator, Guston, along with Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, were the three most inspiring dead artists, at least among art students.