The big pictorial

Hauser & Wirth brings the work of 20th-century abstract expressionist Philip Guston to Hong Kong.

Currently showing at Hauser & Wirth in the H Queen's building in Hong Kong is an exhibition of works by American artist Philip Guston, one of the great luminaries of 20th-century art. His career spanned a half-century, from 1930 to his death in 1980.

Guston was widely recognised as a pioneer of abstract expressionism before an unexpected return to figuration in the late 1960s and, with it, the development of his highly original artistic language of pictorial symbols. His paintings – particularly the liberated and instinctual forms of his last works – continue to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of contemporary painters. The first solo presentation of the artist's work in the Asia-Pacific region since a travelling exhibition in Australia in 1985, this show traces the evolution of Guston's forms, shedding light on the most prolific three decades of his long career.