The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 8, 2024

Sleeper I

Sleeper I

1958
(American, 1913–1980)
America, 20th century
oil on canvas
Framed: 170 x 195 x 4.5 cm (66 15/16 x 76 3/4 x 1 3/4 in.); Unframed: 168.2 x 193 cm (66 1/4 x 76 in.)
Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art 1961.21
© The Estate of Philip Guston
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The artist was born in Montreal, Canada, to Jewish immigrants from Odessa, in present-day Ukraine.

Description

Sleeper I exemplifies Philip Guston's pursuit of abstraction, which occupied him for 20 years of his five-decade career. Although he broke away from his heroic figurative style during the late 1940s, suggestions of objects or figures persist in the heavy strokes of muddy black paint applied to his abstract canvases. In Sleeper I, the pinkish-gray halftones convey a gentle mood of reverie that is interrupted by dark, oppressive forms and streamers of red erupting from the center. If the painting can be considered a direct expression of the artist's feelings, it suggests that Guston's view of the world had taken on an ominous tone. Often feeling conflicted and ambivalence about abstraction, he declared that "Doubt itself . . . becomes a form." By 1970 he returned to a representational, often cartoon-like style that shows traces of his early years as a mural painter.
  • (Sidney Janis Gallery, NY)
  • Henning, Edward B. “Some Contemporary Paintings.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 49, no. 3 (March 1962): 47–54. Mentioned and reproduced: Cover, p. 52-53, fig. 4 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 202 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 202 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Dept. of Art History & Education, CMA, 1969. Mentioned: p. 3 archive.org
    Henning, Edward B. “Reconstruction: A Painting by Jasper Johns.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 8 (October 1973): 235–41. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 239-240, fig. 14 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 253 archive.org
    Henning, Edward B. “New Paintings by Four Artists from Britain.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 10 (December 1982): 311–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159795. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 319-321, fig. 16 www.jstor.org
  • CMA: Works from the Contemporary Collection, July 1-mid-October, 1969
    Works from the Contemporary Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 1-October 15, 1969).
    Fifty Years of Modern Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 15-July 31, 1966).
    Cleveland, OH, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Fifty Years of Modern Art: 1916-1966 (15 June - 31 July 1966), cat. no. 132, repr.
    Cleveland, OH, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Shadowed Images (19 February - 31 March 1963)
    Year in Review (1961). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 1-26, 1961).
    Cleveland, OH, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Year in Review (1 -26 November 1961)
  • {{cite web|title=Sleeper I|url=false|author=Philip Guston|year=1958|access-date=08 May 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1961.21