“This stark lithograph by Philip Guston uses a simple, almost childlike drawing of a house to evoke a powerful sense of isolation and vulnerability against a vast, dark background.”
A dense, inky blackness dominates this lithograph, creating a sense of foreboding and enclosure. Within this heavy atmosphere, a small, almost childlike drawing of a house with a steeply pitched roof and a tiny window emerges. It sits precariously on a hill, surrounded by a few sparse, wiry trees that seem to struggle against the dark void. The scene feels both familiar and deeply unsettling, like a memory half-recalled or a dreamscape. The stark contrast between the deep black and the delicate white lines gives the image an intense emotional weight, hinting at isolation or a fragile domesticity threatened by an unseen force. This work, made in 1966, captures a moment of transition, revealing an artist grappling with new forms of expression and moving away from the abstract style that had defined much of his earlier career.
- Artist
- Philip Guston
- Date
- 1966
- Medium
- Lithograph in black on cream wove paper
- Location
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Dimensions
- Image: 47 × 64 cm (18 9/16 × 25 1/4 in.); Sheet: 57 × 76 cm (22 1/2 × 29 15/16 in.)
What to Notice
Four details hide in plain sight. Here’s where to look.

The tiny, almost dollhouse-like structure perched on the hill.
The way the dark ink engulfs nearly the entire sheet.
The delicate, almost scratched lines forming the trees and house.
The single, small window on the house, suggesting a lone light.
Philip Guston
Philip Guston, born Phillip Goldstein, was a Canadian and American painter who evolved from abstract expressionism to a raw, cartoonish figuration, often depicting hooded figures he called self-portraits.
More works to explore
Beyond Guston: works from the same years.
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Pierre Alechinsky · 1965
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Essai
Sam Francis · 1963 · Art Institute of Chicago
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Impregnazione
Piero Manzoni · 1958
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Alka Seltzer
Roy Lichtenstein · 1966 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1950s–1980s
Untitled (Pair of Vases)
Keith Haring · 1981 · Art Institute of Chicago
Same era · 1950s–1980s
Captain Joseph Medill Patterson
Ivan Puni · 1962 · Art Institute of Chicago
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Woman at the Piano
Philip Evergood · 1955 · Smithsonian American Art Museum
Same era · 1950s–1980s
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Mark Rothko · 1969 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Same era · 1950s–1980s
Nude under a Pine Tree
Pablo Picasso · 1959 · Art Institute of Chicago
