Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston – Musa Mayer in conversation with Catherine Goodman

Spring Term, sees the return of the Royal Drawing School's Creative Conversations; dialogues between artists, curators and writers. Curated by Dr Claudia Tobin, lectures are held on Wednesday evenings.

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In conversation with Catherine Goodman, Musa Mayer will discuss her memoir, Night Studio (1988) and her experience as Philip Guston’s daughter. They will explore Guston’s wider practice and his significance for contemporary artists working today. This talk takes place in the final weeks of the Philip Guston retrospective on display at Tate Modern until 25th February 2024 and will be hosted by Art Historian Antje Southern. 

‘Painter’, Philip Guston, lithograph, 1980 © The Guston Foundation

Musa Mayer’s first book, Night Studio, A Memoir of Philip Guston, was published in 1988. In recent years, following a 25-year career as a cancer advocate, Musa has put full focus on her father’s legacy which has included curating Guston exhibitions in New York, London, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Besides managing the Guston estate, Musa is President of The Guston Foundation, whose legacy projects include the website  PhilipGuston.org, built around a 50-year chronology of the artist’s career and the catalogues raisonné of his paintings, drawings, and archives that detail all exhibitions, bibliography and holdings in museum collections around the world. Musa lives in New York City with her husband, Tom.  

Catherine Goodman CBE LVO is an artist, educator, and the Founding Artistic Director of the Royal Drawing School, which she co-established in 2000 with the former The Prince of Wales, now His Majesty King Charles III. 

She trained at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts and at the Royal Academy Schools for her MA. In 1987 she won the Royal Academy Gold Medal and in 2002, she won First Prize in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery. 

Goodman is represented by Hauser & Wirth and has had numerous solo exhibitions including Portraits from Life at the National Portrait Gallery in 2014 and the last house in the world at Marlborough Fine Art London in 2016; in 2019 she exhibited at Hauser & Wirth Somerset following five months as Artist in Residence, and at Marlborough Gallery New York with her solo exhibition, the light gets in. Goodman’s paintings are held in numerous private and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, and the Royal Collection Trust. Since 2019, Goodman has served as the Artist Trustee at The National Gallery, London. In 2023, Goodman was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to art and education. 

Antje Southern, born in Frankfurt, is an art historian and studied at University College London and the Warburg Institute. She is a generalist lecturer with interests ranging from fine art to design. Following internships at the Getty Department of Decorative Arts and the Coins and Medals Department at The British Museum, she was a lecturer at Christie’s Education. Antje currently teaches contextual art history on our Public Programme.

Cover image: ‘Painter’, Philip Guston, lithograph, 1980 © The Guston Foundation

Please note this Spring Term lectures will take place either in-person at the School or online, please check the individual event listings for details.