Table Talk

About five or six years ago, a friend and former professor of mine in St. Louis recommended a book in a letter to me. He wrote that this little book, "GUSTON IN TIME: Remembering Philip Guston", was the best book he had ever read about what it means to be a painter. I quickly went out and bought this book and I agreed with my friend Ed.

Feld was originally from Brooklyn but eventually came to Cincinnati to teach at the University of Cincinnati. He was a novelist, poet, teacher and critical thinker.
He died of cancer in 2001.

When Guston, arguably the greatest American painter of the modern era, unveiled a new series of paintings in 1970 at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City - paintings of cartoonish Ku Klux Klan figures riding in old jalopies as opposed to the elegant “abstractions” he had become famous for - critics and friends alike attacked him harshly. Ross Feld wrote a review that spoke positively and insightfully about the new work. Guston wrote him a letter of gratitude and before long a friendship developed.

Last year I was summoned to a house here in Cincinnati to look at a small decorative job. This house belonged to a Dr. Feld. The ringing doorbell woke a young man who ushered me in and then promptly went back upstairs. I noticed a poster for Ross Feld in an adjoining room. Over the living room fireplace was a poster for Guston’s show at the Marlborough Gallery. I took my notes for the job and before leaving I yelled upstairs to the young man. He peeked downstairs at me. I asked if he was any relation to Ross Feld. “He’s my father” was the reply. I expressed my condolences and told him what this book had meant to me.

When I returned a couple of weeks later for the work, I met Feld’s widow. I told her about my experience with her late husband’s book and about my love for Guston’s art. She kindly listened and then proceeded to tell me a few wonderful tales about visiting the Gustons in Woodstock on many occasions. The Felds were much younger than the Gustons.

After wonderful meals - Guston loved to cook and loved food like he loved alcohol and cigarettes - she and Guston’s wife Musa would leave the two men in the kitchen, where they would talk for hours and hours about art, life, history, philosophy and who knows what else.

I would have loved to have been there.