“Draw Them In Paint, Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston examines Philip Guston’s influence on Trenton Doyle Hancock and both artists’ shared commitment to investigating the legacy of white supremacism in the United States. On view November 8, 2024, through March 30, 2025, the exhibition presents the work of painter Philip Guston (American, b. Canada 1913–1980), the child of Jewish immigrants from Odessa (present-day Ukraine), and Trenton Doyle Hancock (American, b. 1974), a leading Black contemporary artist based in Houston, Texas, in dialogue for the first time. The exhibition explores resonant connections between their work and the role that artists play in the pursuit of social justice. 

Organized by the Jewish Museum, the exhibition features key works by Guston including his now iconic, late satirical Ku Klux Klan paintings in dialogue with major works Hancock created in response to his inspirational mentor, highlighting their parallel thematic explorations of the nature of evil, self-representation, otherness, and art activism. Foregrounding works that depict the Klan, the exhibition demonstrates how both artists engage with and at times even inhabit these hateful figures to explore their own identities and more broadly examine systems of institutionalized power and their feelings of complicity within them. Yet, despite the difficult subject matter and at times violent imagery presented in their work, both Hancock and Guston share an ability to conquer the pain and emotion of their art through humor that is both dark and undeniable, engaging with their shared embrace of the visual language of comics.” — Jewish Museum

Installation views of “Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston” at the Jewish Museum, NY, November 8, 2024-March 30, 2025. Photographs by Gregory Carter / Document Art. Courtesy Jewish Museum.

Title image: Philip Guston, Riding Around, 1969, oil on canvas, 54 x 79 in. (137.2 x 200.7 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, promised gift of Musa Mayer © The Estate of Philip Guston. Courtesy Jewish Museum.

Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston is organized by Rebecca Shaykin, Curator, The Jewish Museum, in partnership with Trenton Doyle Hancock. The exhibition is designed by Isometric Studio with graphic design by Morcos Key.