Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston
Cover image: Philip Guston, 1930. Photo: Edward Weston © 2023, Prolitteris, Zurich.Collection of the Estate of Philip Guston
‘Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston was released on the 25th of April in 2023. It features an updated edition of this classic, intimate memoir by Philip Guston’s daughter, Musa Mayer, with a new afterword.
‘A memoir of depth and clarity.’—New York Times Book Review
‘The best book on the painter.’—The Times (London)
‘An extraordinary and touching exploration of Guston’s life.’—The Art Newspaper
‘Mayer’s wonderful memoir of her father is most convincing because of its autobiographical honesty.’
—London Review of Books
The Studio 1969 Oil on canvas48 x 42 in/122 x 107 cm Promised Gift of Musa Guston Mayer to The Metropolitan Museum ofArt© The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & WirthPhotograph: Keldon Polacco
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.
Book photography: Courtesy Hauser& Wirth Publishers
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.
Book photography: Courtesy Hauser& Wirth Publishers
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.
About Hauser & Wirth Publishers
Artists’ voices, exceptional art, scholarship, design and bookmaking are at the heart of Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ program, which has been helmed by Michaela Unterdörfer since 2005. Books are critical gateways to new ways of thinking and seeing; they provide vital, lasting records of artists’ works and ideas and the discourse they inspire. This is why publishing has been a cornerstone of the gallery’s activity since its founding and why Hauser & Wirth Publishers has grown to become a leading imprint for unique, object-like books that encourage an understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art. With the special access granted by artists to their writings and archives, Hauser & Wirth Publishers often brings new and overlooked aspects of an artist’s creative practice into focus. Our backlist offers a robust program that comprises artists’ books, artists’ writings, biographies, monographs, surveys, exhibition catalogs and collectors’ perspectives.
Hauser & Wirth’s publishing activity extends back to 1992, from where it steadily flourished through partnerships with reputable imprints such as Hatje Cantz, JRP|Ringier, Snoeck, Steidl, Thames & Hudson and Yale University Press, before publishing independently under its own imprint. Based in Zurich and New York City, Hauser & Wirth Publishers commissions titles that we believe are keystone resources and references related to the artists represented by the gallery and beyond. Our titles are distributed worldwide via Distributed Art Publishers and Buchhandlung Walther König.
‘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
For more information about this title, please visit the Hauser & Wirth Publishers website. For more information about the exhibits at the gallery, please visit Hauser & Wirth site. Also, follow the gallery on Instagram, Facebook, X and YouTube for more updates.
