Telling Stories: Philip Guston’s Later Works

(University of California Press) In this book, Kaufmann examines the work of Philip Guston, specifically Guston’s figurative paintings of the late 1960s and 1970s. He explores the early critical reception of Guston’s pieces, simultaneously finding out what the artist was doing and investigating the relationship between the artist and audience. Kaufmann couples his close readings of the paintings with a historical approach, and also touches upon Guston’s complicated relationship to Judaism and the larger context of the New York art world. Kaufmann is associate professor of English at George Mason University.