Philip Guston

"Philip Guston (1913-1980) was born in Montreal, Canada, to a family of immigrants from Russia. They moved to Los Angeles, California in 1919. He began drawing seriously there with the encouragement of his mother. Guston enrolled in Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles; but in 1928 he and his friend, Jackson Pollock, were expelled for distributing satirical pamphlets about the English Department. He began to work odd jobs, occasionally as a movie extra, but never completed high school. In 1930 he was awarded a one year scholarship to Otis Art Institute. Guston abandoned the Institute after only three months, claiming he was discouraged by the teaching techniques. He had his first exhibition at Stanley Rose's book shop and gallery in 1931, and two years later participated in his first museum exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Guston became fascinated with Mexican murals and traveled to Mexico to study them during 1934. From 1935 until 1940 he painted murals for the United States Post Office in Commerce, Georgia (1938), and for the New York's World Fair (1939) as a part of W.P.A. Federal Artists Project. He began to concentrate on easel painting in the early 1940s. The U.S. Navy commissioned him to complete a set of drawings for training fighter pilots. In 1944 he held his first solo exhibition of paintings and drawings.
Guston traveled to Italy in 1948, to study the works of the masters, but did not paint during that time. He joined the Sidney Janis Gallery along with several other artists including Pollock in 1955, and in 1967 after many shows in the United States and abroad, He began painting figurative works again. He was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972, and was elected to be a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978. He won several awards including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1947 and the Creative Arts Award in 1980 from Brandeis University. Guston's work is included in the permanent collections of many institutions such as the Denver Art Museum (CO), the University of Texas, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), and the Museum of Modern Art (NY)." [Source: unknown and currently being researched]