The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Horizontally oriented, abstract oil painting with thick, streaking paint strokes extending across the canvas. Vaguely rectangular black clusters of brushstrokes surrounded with red streaks gather in the center. Dark blue also fills spaces, lightening in color as it sporadically intermingles with the mostly white strokes in the background. Occasional orange, green, red, and yellow intermix with the white. These colors streak through some of the white strokes, most of which are partially grey-tinged.

Sleeper I

1958

Philip Guston

(American, 1913–1980)
America
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

Philip Guston’s working method at the time he created Sleeper I entailed a progression from relying on accidental effects to being more deliberate; in his words, “The air of arbitrary vanishes and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.”
  • The artist
    (Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY)
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, purchased in 1961
  • 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=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

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