''City Limits'' is a 1969 painting by

Phillip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...

, part of his “hoods” series of representational works. These paintings depicted cartoonish versions of

Klansmen The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian extremist, white supremacist, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction in the devastated South. Various historians hav ...

engaged in various mundane activities. While other works in this series (i.e. ''The Studio'') featured the artist himself under the guise of a KKK member, ''City Limits'' provides a more straightforward depiction. The child-like presentation has been described as enabling “a simple account of the simple-mindedness of violence.” It is influenced by his early work with

Mexican Muralists Mexican muralism refers to the art project initially funded by the Mexican government in the immediate wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) to depict visions of Mexico's past, present, and future, transforming the walls of many public buil ...

and was part of his polarizing abandonment of

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

as a genre at his 1970 Marlborough Gallery exhibition. It is featured in ''Philip Guston Now'', a traveling retrospective that generated controversy when it was postponed in 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:City Limits 1969 paintings Paintings by Philip Guston