Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Unlike my friend Richard Howard, I never had the good fortune to meet Ross Feld just admired him, intensely, from afar. What a describer, what an intelligence! Here is a writer who, whatever the subject, is incapable of commonplace responses and diction. (Randall Jarrell is another.) His last, singular book is essential Feld: a thrilling, giddy rush of subtle, mature judgments. But never was Feld's acuity so partnered as here; Guston, of course, is no mean subject. These two high-octane minds in dialogue, in deep, respectful friendship, resound in their letters like a piano sonata for four hands that's part Schubert, part Busoni. And then there's the enclosing arch of Feld's visionary evocation of Guston's quest and Guston's vulnerability. (Portrait of the Artist as ...) This is a beautiful, mysterious, generous book."
Susan Sontag
Review
"Guston's art never goosestepped in time to aesthetic orthodoxy. Neither does Ross Feld's exhilarating, stylistically-inventive book. Part criticism, part memoir, part meditation on art and death, Guston In Time is a revealing portrait of not only the painter, but of a passionate friendship. "We are necessary absolutely to each other," Guston declared to Feld. Witnessing this duet of ferocious yet generous intelligences, we can see why. Feld argues that to create, an artist must both expose himself and hide often at the same time. What a privilege it is to share both men's creative processes." Lisa Zeidner, author of Layover
Review
"This irresistible hybrid - part memoir, part art criticism, part biography, part meditation on death - employs language with such richness that it seems a species of prose poetry. The combination of Feld's startlingly insightful writing with the astonishing candor of Guston's letters, is unique and compelling. Together they wrestle with their respective angels - words and images - but always the shadow of mortality hovers over them like smoke. Looked at one way, this book is a small, perfect elegy; looked at another, it is an even more complicated achievement. The three modes that Feld nominates as central to Guston's art - "theatrical, asymmetrically plural and philosophical" - are Feld's own strengths as well and this book fairly vibrates with their considered application. The writers with whom he shares company - the likes of Dave Hickey, John Berger and Arthur Danto - are the finest critics we have." Robert Enright, Editor-at-Large for Border Crossings magazine and the author of Peregrinations: 32 Conversations with Contemporary Artists
Review
"Friendships and devoted correspondents across various disciplines give us a special glimpse into why we are all involved in this thing called culture. The Guston-Feld correspondences have the immediacy and urgency that we usually experience only in artists' studios in front of new work or over drinks and a pack of cigarettes throwing around new ideas. Reading this book you can taste the scotch and smell the smoke, and feel the ideas forming."
Michael Auping, Chief Curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and Curator of the 2003 International Philip Guston Retrospective
Synopsis
In the years following his controversial 1970 exhibition at the Marlborough Galleries, Philip Guston was generally viewed as yesterday's scandal, a maverick who had abandoned abstract expressionism and, with it, the adulation of the art world. Few paid serious attention to the disturbing, profound work he was producing in his Woodstock studio. So when Ross Feld, a young novelist and critic, wrote a penetrating review of Guston's latest show, the artist sent him a letter of appreciation: I felt . . . as if we knew each other and had many discussions about painting and literature. In a word--I felt recognition.
Thus began a remarkable friendship. Feld, a frequent visitor to Guston's studio where the two men would talk late into the night, became Guston's intellectual sparring partner and sounding board--I'll shout it right out, Guston wrote to Feld, you inspire me to paint again --as well as the artist's most eloquent critic and champion. Guston in Time is Feld's final tribute, and it is at once a testament to a friendship, a provocative and richly nuanced study of one of the twentieth century's most important artists, and a portrait of a remarkable character.