This exhibition focuses on the year 1970, when Guston stunned the art world by leaving abstraction for a simple, cartoonlike style of figuration that he maintained until his death in 1980. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a wall of small panel paintings in which he proposed a new visual "alphabet." These paintings were executed in 1968-70 and will be installed much as they were in Guston's studio.

Philip Guston; 1968; Bequest of Musa Guston; Accession #: 1993.25; 45.4 cm. x 50.5 cm x 2.2 cm; © President and Fellows of Harvard College

The context for the shift in Guston’s aesthetic will be provided by several paintings from the early 1960s – gray abstractions in which head like forms begin to emerge in Guston's art – as well as several paintings from 1969 and after, which feature images of Ku Klux Klansmen, his personal response to the political turmoil of the times.

Philip Guston: A New Alphabet was co-organized by the Yale University Art Gallery and the Fogg Art Museum, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.