Philip Guston
American, born Canada, 1913–1980
Couple in Bed
INV-9058
Philip Guston
American, born Canada, 1913–19801977
Couple in Bed
Philip Guston American, born Canada, 1913–1980 →contemporarypaintingmodern and contemporary art
Date
1977
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
206.2 × 240.3 cm (81 1/8 × 94 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Through prior bequest of Frances W. Pick, and memorial gift from her daughter, Mary P. Hines
An established painter of some of the most poetic Abstract Expressionist painting of the late 1950s, Guston gradually abandoned abstraction in the 1960s in favor of seemingly crude, cartoonish, images drawn from memory. In Couple in Bed, Guston lays in bed with his wife, Musa, their faces pressed together as one in the manner of Brancusi's The Kiss. Here the artist holds his brushes as tightly as he does his wife, who in May of 1977 suffered a series of debilitating strokes.
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