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Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Jochen Littkemann; © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
D1083
[Drawing, 'Untitled']
1944
Crayon and graphite pencil on lavender-edged paper
19 1/4 x 25 3/8 in. (48.9 x 64.5 cm)
Recto not inscribed
Verso not seen
The Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, Berlin
Provenance
Estate of Arshile Gorky (1948)
[M. Knoedler & Co. Inc., New York (1967)]
Estate of Arshile Gorky (October 5, 1972)
Private collection (1975)
[Xavier Fourcade Inc., New York (after May 27, 1986)]
David Neuman / Simon/Neuman Gallery, New York (November 1987)
Galerie Folker Skulima, Berlin (West) (likely by 1989; by 1990)
The Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, Berlin (by 2000)
Exhibitions
1969e New York
M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky: Drawings, November 25–December 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Jordan 1969), no. 78, ill. in b/w, p. 38; p. 58, as "Drawing".
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 179, ill. in b/w, p. 204, as "Untitled". Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
2005 Venice
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, Affinities: Works from the Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, Berlin, June 4–September 18, 2005, ill. in color, p. 154, as "Study for Untitled".
2006 Vienna
BA-CA Kunstforum, Vienna, Verrückte Liebe: Von Dalí bis Francis Bacon, Surreale Kunst aus der Sammlung Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch, March 8–June 18, 2006, no. 94, ill. in color, p. 171, as "Untitled - Study for Painting".
2009 Berlin
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Bilder Träume: Die Sammlung Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch, June 19–November 22, 2009, ill. in color, p. 248, as "Untitled (Study for Untitled)".
Literature
Jordan 1982a
Jordan, Jim M. "The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: New Discoveries, New Sources, and Chronology." In The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue, by Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater. New York and London: New York University Press, 1982, fig. 11, ill. in b/w, p. 86; discussed p. 85, as "Drawing".
Corrin 1990
Corrin, Lisa. "Toward Armenia: Notes of a Journey." In Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1990. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 1, ill. in b/w, p. 173, as "Untitled".
Pietzsch 2000
Pietzsch, Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch. Leben mit Kunst: Sammlung Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch. Berlin: H. Pietzsch, 2000, ill. in color, p. 279, as "Untitled".
Steinkamp and Evans 2021
Maike Steinkamp and Emily Joyce Evans, eds. Die Sammlung der Nationalgalerie 1905–1945. Berlin: 2 Bände, 2021, discussed p. 276; ill. in color, p. 277, as "Studie für 'Ohne Titel'".
Notes
Watermark / Stamp: Strathmore

The drawing is on Strathmore "Fiesta" paper. According to extant Strathmore “Fiesta” sample booklets, the sheet’s deckled-edges would have originally been tinted mulberry, but the mulberry ink has apparently lightened to lavender. “Fiesta” paper, available at 26 x 40 inches a sheet, had colored, deckled edges at top and bottom, and in a variety of colors. The drawing's approximately 20 x 26 inches are the result of the original sheet being halved down its center. It is one of ten known drawings by Gorky on this type of support.

Recto, in pencil, lower right [by Agnes Gorky Phillips]: A. Gorky

Commentary

The drawing's overall composition is directly related to an untitled painting by Gorky dating to 1944 (P285; see related work).

The drawing was likely created at Crooked Run Farm during Gorky’s second summer there in 1944. In early May that year, the Gorky family left New York and returned to Crooked Run—the rural Lincoln, Virginia, home of Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky's (1921–2013) parents Esther (1896–1990) and John H. Magruder II (1889–1963)—this time staying for close to six months. It proved another creatively productive period for Gorky, who wrote to his younger sister, “I have drawn many new drawings which are among my best.”1 He was again captivated by his surroundings: the tall grasses, thistles, milkweed, and ragweed; reportedly lamenting, when the fields were mown, “they are cutting down the Raphaels.”2 The barn on the property, which Gorky temporarily repurposed as a studio, was populated with a collection of dried horse bones, “old rusty farm implements,” “bits of machinery,” and haystacks.3

1. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, c. 1944, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York; Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, c. 1944, in Matthew Spender, ed., Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song: A Life in Letters and Documents, trans. Father Krikor Maksoudian (Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2018), 307.

2. Arshile Gorky, as quoted in letter from Mougouch Gorky to Jeanne Reynal, Summer 1944, in Spender, ed., The Plow and the Song, 309.

3. Letter from Mougouch Gorky to Jeanne Reynal, November 1944, in ibid, 319-20.

Related Work
(Untitled)1944 P285
(Untitled)
1944
Oil on canvas
P285
Oil on canvas