Lot Essay
"The more I painted, the more mysterious these objects became. The visible world, I think, is abstract and mysterious enough, I don't think one needs to depart from it in order to make art" (P. Guston, quoted in K. Stiles and P. Selz, eds., "Philip Guston Talking" in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings, Berkeley, 1996, p. 250).