Hauser & Wirth Publishers presents an updated edition of ‘Night Studio,’ the groundbreaking memoir by Philip Guston’s (1913 – 1980) daughter, Musa Mayer. First published in 1988 to critical acclaim, this biography is both a deeply personal account of growing up in the shadow of a great artist and a daughter’s quest to better understand her father, based on letters, notes and interviews. This edition is complemented by additional images and a new afterword written by Musa Mayer addressing the recent reception of Guston’s oeuvre as well as reflections on the afterlife of her memoir.
Edward Weston © 2023, Prolitteris, Zurich.
Collection of the Estate of Philip Guston
This unabridged version of the original text is a poignant and honest engagement with the work and the life of one of the great luminaries of 20th-century art. Guston’s legendary career spanned half a century; beginning as a muralist in the 1930s, he embraced the lyrical vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism in his paintings and drawings after his move to the East Coast.
Following an artistic crisis in the mid-60s, his return to figuration— focusing first on motifs of ordinary life, later evolving to the enigmatic and iconic cartoonlike forms for which he is now best known—shook the art world.
Guston Mayer to The Metropolitan Museum of Art © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Keldon Polacco
Written in Musa Mayer’s captivating manner, ‘Night Studio’ is both informative and compelling. Due to its great resonance, the book has been republished three times (1997, 2016, 2023). Thoughtfully designed, this latest edition features an expansive selection of photographs and images, containing many of the 200 works that Mayer recently announced she would donate to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The major retrospective ‘Philip Guston Now,’ is currently on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (26 February – 27 August 2023), and will travel to Tate Modern, London later this year (3 October 2023 – 25 February 2024).
Musa Mayer manages the estate of Philip Guston and is president of The Guston Foundation. She has curated several exhibitions of Guston’s work. Her other books include ‘Examining Myself: One Woman’s Story of Breast Cancer’ (1994). She lives in New York City, with her husband, Tom.
‘Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston’
Written by Musa Mayer
Release date: 25 April 2023
Cover and layout for this edition by Elizabeth McLean
Published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers
English, Flexicover
372 pages, 134 illustrations, 150 x 234 mm
ISBN 978-3-906915-75-3
£35 / $38 / €35 / CHF 36 / HKD 325
©2023 Hauser & Wirth Publishers, Philip Guston
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