Guston and Feldman on a White Ground

"A small Guston painting from 1967 hangs over my desk: on a white ground, just two elongated black shapes about seven inches from each other. Their positioning in the field is characteristic of how Guston freezes a painting during the sixties. 'That one on the left,' he said, 'is telling the other one his troubles.'" (p234/235)

From Morton Feldman, essay in Philip Guston: 1980, The Last Works, catalogue for an exhibition organised by the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., 1981.