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Lot Essay
The composer John Cage described Guston's abstract paintings as "that beautiful land," as much for their sublime spendor as their organic structure and living presence. Lush, sensuous brushstrokes converge on the surface of both Spring I and Spring II. The richly impastoed reds, pinks and steely grays emerge in the center of the canvas from the vast spaciousness of the loosely painted outer edges.
Guston's daughter, Musa Mayer, wrote:
"A new terms was coined: critics began calling Philip Guston an 'abstract impressionist.' They compared his work to the later Monet, to the famous paintings of water lilies at Giverny. Essays were written about a return to the natural world. In fact, this was not precisely the case. Nature was never a direct or conscious model for my father's painting; the influence was more formal, or even metaphysical, than it was impressionistic. 'I recall a strong preoccupation with the forces of nature at work,' my father [Guston] said later. 'Sky and earth, the inert and the moving, weights and gravities, the wind through the trees, resistances and flow" (M. Mayer, Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston, New York, 1988, p. 62).
Guston presented Spring I and Spring II as his entries for the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1959. Notably, they are each marked "N.F.S." on the reverse, meaning "not for sale," which indicates how highly Guston thought of them. As a result they remained in the artist's collection until he chose to give them to Lee Eastman.
Guston's daughter, Musa Mayer, wrote:
"A new terms was coined: critics began calling Philip Guston an 'abstract impressionist.' They compared his work to the later Monet, to the famous paintings of water lilies at Giverny. Essays were written about a return to the natural world. In fact, this was not precisely the case. Nature was never a direct or conscious model for my father's painting; the influence was more formal, or even metaphysical, than it was impressionistic. 'I recall a strong preoccupation with the forces of nature at work,' my father [Guston] said later. 'Sky and earth, the inert and the moving, weights and gravities, the wind through the trees, resistances and flow" (M. Mayer, Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston, New York, 1988, p. 62).
Guston presented Spring I and Spring II as his entries for the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1959. Notably, they are each marked "N.F.S." on the reverse, meaning "not for sale," which indicates how highly Guston thought of them. As a result they remained in the artist's collection until he chose to give them to Lee Eastman.