(Montreal, Québec, 1913 - 1980, Woodstock, New York)
1964
Oil on paper
30 1/8 x 40 1/8 in. (76.5 x 101.9 cm)
Collection of the Akron Art Museum
Bequest from the estate of Musa Guston
1994.3
Works from this period are sometimes referred to by critics and historians as “the erasures” because of the artist’s use of white paint over wet black paint to “erase” it, resulting in gray. Guston, however, called these his “dark pictures.” In this painting, only a glint of muddied red and bits of the white paper at the corners offer escape from the painting’s oppressive atmosphere of dense grays and blacks.