Trip to Syracuse Everson Museum to Compare My Work to Dead Painters

Leisurely Swim Past the Dinghy Blossoms 2024. Acrylic on cardboard, 16 x 16"

Went to the Everson Museum in Syracuse yesterday with my friend Mike. We rode about town before it opened, stopping at Lombardis for sharp Romano cheese and proscuitto. I took a photo of the mural Mike and I painted at its entryway two years ago. They paid us in charcuterie.

Then we drove to the other side of town to take a picture of the house my Great Grandfather built it in 1916. Aged well, I think.

My main objective at the museum was to see their one and only Philip Guston. Always instructive to view a famous modern painter’s work up close. I love the paintings Guston made in the last decade of his life. I believe that’s when he was the freest. It gives me hope to see how painting can keep going, right up until your last days. I was able to get right under the unframed painting. He didn’t stretch canvases well—about 100 more staples than necessary. Otherwise, rough, loose and free, like a child. Wonderful!
When I die maybe the Everson will purchase a Throop, so Guston and me can talk shop in the storage room.

Philip Guston: I forgot the title. 1978. Oil on canvas

Finally, for movie buffs, Robert DeNiro Sr. was a well known expressionist painter long before his son did that creepy Taxi Driver movie. Again, no title. Sorry. Oil on canvas: