Painted in 1946, shortly before Philip Guston embraced abstraction, ‘The Courtyard’ (1946) represents the pinnacle of the artist’s early figuration. His earliest works evoked the stylized forms of his artistic heroes, such as Piero della Francesca, and influential predecessors, including Giorgio de Chirico and Pablo Picasso. Informed by his personal experiences with social unrest and violence, the motifs found in ‘The Courtyard’ presage his later rediscovery of figuration toward the end of his career, where legs and masks appear again. Related 1940s paintings can be found in significant museum collections, including in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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Philip Guston
The Courtyard
- 1946
- Oil on canvas
- 108 x 86.4 cm / 42 1/2 x 34 in
Unveiling our Art Basel Exclusive work: Philip Guston’s ‘The Courtyard’ (1946)
‘I think a strong influence on me [in the mid-1940s] was Picasso in the late twenties, those rich still lives of his, where representational forms are compressed and made into new combinations, new shapes.’ [1]
Philip Guston
Philip Guston is one of the great luminaries of twentieth-century art. His commitment to producing work from genuine emotion and lived experience ensures its enduring impact. Guston’s legendary career spanned a half century, from 1930 to 1980. His paintings—particularly the liberated and instinctual forms of his late work—continue to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of contemporary painters.
Art Basel 2026
Philip Guston’s ‘The Courtyard’ (1946) will be on view in our presentation at Art Basel alongside voices from past and present that have defined art history. With an emphasis on exceptional modern and contemporary works, our presentation traverses a century of artistic invention, from Cubism to some of the most urgent artistic voices of today.
[1] Philip Guston, ’Talk at Yale Summer School of Music and Art (1972)’ in ‘Philip Guston. Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations,’ Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 2011, p. 151.