Artwork
Ocean
Artist
Philip Guston
(American, born Canada, 1913 - 1980)
DepartmentContemporary Art
Date1976
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions78 × 116 5/8 in. (198.1 × 296.2 cm)
framed: 78 7/8 × 118 3/8 in. (200.3 × 300.7 cm)
framed: 78 7/8 × 118 3/8 in. (200.3 × 300.7 cm)
Credit LineSan Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Brown Foundation
Object number78.1280
Copyright© The Estate of Philip Guston
GeographyPlace madeUnited States
DescriptionA large painting dominated by a red mass that is slightly modeled with varied linework in a lighter, contrasting color. A green curlicue design stretches horizontally across the mid-section of the canvas. The top third is a field of light blue. Brushwork is apparent throughout.Label TextA later painting in Guston’s body of work, Ocean integrates both abstract and representational elements. While the title suggests that the subject is a seascape, Guston’s distinctive palette transforms the water into fleshy mounds. Undulating lines and visible brushwork reveal the artist’s expressive application of paint. Guston’s rigorous approach to painting shifted from figuration to abstraction then to a highly influential combination of the two in his late period of making art. By the mid-1960s, Guston was becoming uneasy with the meditative isolation that abstract painting encouraged and began incorporating cartoony, satirical figures, some of which recalled hooded members of the Klu Klux Klan. Until his death in 1980, Guston created increasingly enigmatic compositions reminiscent of still lives or spare landscapes, with clusters of figures, heavy boots and tools, and cycloptic heads.
Ocean was on view during the summer of 2017 in Venice, Italy, in the exhibition Philip Guston and The Poets organized by the Gallerie dell’Academia di Venezia in collaboration with The Philip Guston Foundation. Ocean reflects Guston’s use of symbolic imagery in concert with lyrical, painterly passages. Seascapes are prevalent in Guston’s work from the 1970s and reflect the artist’s inundating personal struggles and the influence of writers such as T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) and Samuel Beckett (1906–1989), whose works explore existential themes. (2018)Exhibition History"Reopening of the Contemporary Galleries" - July 7, 2007 - curated by David Rubin40 Years, 40 Stories: Treasures and New Discoveries from SAMA's Collection, San Antonio Museum of Art, October 16, 2021–January 02, 2022,Published ReferencesJ. Powers, ed., Still Brewing Art: Making the San Antonio Museum of Art (San Antonio: San Antonio Museum of Art, 2025), p. 110, no. 39.
On view
Helen Savier DuMond
Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
Culture: Indigenous Australians (Pintupi/Pitjantjatjara language group)
2005
Terry Dhurritjini Yumbulul
Culture: Indigenous Australians (Warramiri language group)
2007
Phyllis Ningamara
Culture: Indigenous Australians (Miriwoong language group)
2007
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
