Philip Guston's Poor Richard » (1)

Debra Bricker Balken is an independent curator and writer. She has assembled numerous exhibitions in the United States, including a retrospective of Arthur Dove's work at the Addison Gallery of American Art. She is the author of several books and catalogues, including Arthur Dove: A Retrospective and Alfredo Jaar: Lament of the Images.

In 1971, the artist Philip Guston (1913-1980) created this series of caricatures of Richard Nixon, now available for the first time in book form. Produced two years before Watergate and three years before Nixon's resignation, these provocative, searing condemnations of a corrupt head of state are both a remarkable, prescient political satire and an aesthetic landmark-one of few instances of an artist in the late twentieth century engaging caricature in his work.