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In 1936, Guston moved to New York , and worked as an artist under the WPA scheme. During this period his work can be typified by strong references to Renaissance painters such as Paolo Uccello , Masaccio and Giotto . Influences of the American Regionalist s and Mexican Mural Painters can also be found. During this period he accepted a teaching position at Washington University , St. Louis . He held this position from 1945 to 1947. In the 1950s , Guston achieved success as a second-generation Abstract Expressionist. His paintings generally consisted of one to several masses of color floating around the middle of the canvas. In the late 1960s , he became frustrated with Abstraction and began painting representational subjects again, but in a Cartoon ish manner. When criticized about the impurity of his later paintings, he responded, "There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art. That painting is autonomous, pure and for itself, therefore we habitually analyze its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is 'impure'. It is the adjustment of 'impurities' which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden. There are no wiggly or straight lines..." In this body of work he created a lexicon of images such as Klansmen , lightbulbs, shoes, interiors, and Cyclop es. Guston is best known for these late existential and lugubrious paintings, which at the time of his death had reached a wide audience, and brought him to the attention of many painters and imitators. Guston died in 1980 in Woodstock, New York . |
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