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Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

D1116
(Untitled)
1944
Graphite pencil and crayon on paper
18 3/4 x 24 3/4 in. (47.6 x 62.9 cm)
Recto, in pencil, upper left: A. Gorky / 44
Verso not seen
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Promised Gift of Pat and Bill Wilson, Hillsborough, California
Provenance
The artist
Julien Levy Gallery, New York (December 21, 1944)
Julien Levy, Bridgewater, Connecticut (1949)
[Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (by September 1955)]
[Washburn Gallery, New York (by November 1978)]
Allan Stone Gallery, New York (December 1978)
[Donald Morris Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan (1980)]
Maurice and Margo Cohen, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (likely by April 1981)
[Christie's, New York, Twentieth Century Art (Evening Sale), May 13, 1999, lot 458]
Pat and Bill Wilson, Hillsborough, California (likely May 13, 1999)
Exhibitions
1945a New York possibly
Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, March 6–31, 1945. (Exhibition brochure: Breton 1945b).
1947a New York
Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Colored Drawings, February 18–25, 1947.
1955c New York
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Drawings for Principal Paintings by Gorky, September 26–October 22, 1955.
1978d New York
Washburn Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, In Memory, November 2–28, 1978, no. 7, as "Untitled".
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 175, ill. in b/w, p. 201, as "Drawing". Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
2016 San Francisco
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Campaign for Art. Drawings, Part I, May 14–September 18, 2016.
Literature
Kramer 1955
Kramer, Hilton. "Month in Review: Drawings from Gorky's Last Years." Arts Magazine (New York) 30 (October 1955), ill. in b/w, p. 49, as "Drawing".
Levy 1966
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 127, ill. in b/w, p. 151, as "Drawing".
Rathbone 1978
Rathbone, Eliza E. "Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song." In American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1978. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 20, ill. in b/w, p. 72, as "Drawing".
Notes

Commentary

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

Having reduced his activity as a dealer during the early years of the war, Julien Levy (1906–1981) moved his gallery to its final location of 42 East 57th Street in March 1943. He signed a contract with Gorky in December 1944. Levy had known Gorky for over ten years at this point, without having shown an interest in representing his work. He offered the artist a contract following a recommendation from André Breton (1896–1966), who promised to write an introductory essay to Gorky’s debut solo show, which opened in March 1945.4 This drawing is among the first selection of works that Levy received from the artist on December 21, 1944. Based on this fact, it is probable, though unconfirmed, that it was included in the 1945 exhibition.

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.

4. Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, March 6–31, 1945.

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