Evan Smith reviews The Guston Effect at Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, on view through August 15, 2015.

Smith writes that the show "makes a broad, convincingly argued statement about the lingering spectre of Guston in the work of dozens of painters… The response of many artists in the show is to produce a kind of self-conscious, self-imposed marginality. A lot of the work on view is simply painted in a Guston palette, or with Guston shapes, or are literally tribute paintings, but artists like Katherine Bradford, Amy Sillman, and Jackie Gendel are fully committing themselves to teasing out the possibilities of personal narrative and self-exploration lingering in figurative painting, while maintaining a love for the materiality of paint. In this they have developed an authentic and complex connection to Guston and are continuing his legacy. Purity is nice for those with the privilege of emptiness, but painting will always have a place of refuge for those with the need to tell their stories."