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Photo: © 2018 Cary Whittier
D1152
[Drawing, The Unattainable]
1945
Graphite pencil and crayon on paper
24 x 18 in. (61 x 45.7 cm)
Not inscribed
Private collection
Provenance
Estate of Arshile Gorky (1948)
[M. Knoedler & Co. Inc., New York (December 3, 1968)]
Estate of Arshile Gorky (after April 1971)
Private collection (1975)
[Xavier Fourcade Inc., New York (June 19, 1980)]
Warner Communications, New York (April 14, 1982)
Marc de Montebello Fine Art Inc., New York (by March 1994)
Private collection, New York (after April 1995)
[Possibly Kate Ganz USA Ltd., New York]
Private collection (by 2007)
[Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art Evening Auction, November 9, 2011, lot 71]
Private collection, San Francisco (November 9, 2011)
[Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York (October 2018)]
Private collection, San Francisco (by 2019)
Exhibitions
1962–63b New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, December 19, 1962–February 12, 1963. (Exhibition catalogue: Seitz 1962), no. 78, ill. in b/w, p. 34; p. 54, as "Study for The Unattainable," [exhibited in New York only]. Traveled to: Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., March 12–April 14, 1963.1962–68 IC–MoMA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, International Council (organizer), Arshile Gorky Drawings, 1962–68, MoMA no. 62.1062, as "Study for The Unattainable," dated 1945–46, [Tokyo: no. 31, ill. in b/w; Germany: no. 31; Rotterdam: no. 102; Vienna: no. 31; Lisbon: no. 31, ill. in b/w; Oslo: no. 31; Lund: no. 31; Basel: no. 34; Zagreb: no. 34; Rome: no. 32, ill. in b/w; Buenos Aires: no. 34; Caracas: no. 34; Mexico City: no. 34; not exhibited at Nottingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Brussels, and Rotterdam]. Traveled to: Newcomb College, Tulane University, New Orleans, September 23–October 14, 1962; Chatham College, Pittsburgh, October 29–November 19, 1962; Watkins Institute, Nashville, January 9–30, 1963; Spiva Art Center, Joplin, Missouri, February 7–28, 1963; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 15–April 5, 1963; Marshall College, Huntington, West Virginia, April 22–May 13, 1963; Seibu Gallery, Seibu Department Store, Tokyo, July 26–August 11, 1963; Westmar College, LeMars, Iowa, September 2–23, 1963; Washington University, Saint Louis, October 4–25, 1963; Arts Club of Chicago, November 10–December 15, 1963; Indiana University, Bloomington, January 2–23, 1964; Wells College, Aurora, New York, February 7–28, 1964; Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, March 16–April 6, 1964; Jewish Museum, New York, April 21–June 30, 1964; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany, July 6–August 5, 1964; Hamburger Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany, August 7–September 4, 1964; Amerika Haus, Berlin, September 11–October 6, 1964; Folkwangmuseum, Essen, Germany, October 15–November 15, 1964; York City Art Gallery, United Kingdom, December 5–30, 1964; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, January 6–February 13, 1965; Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham, United Kingdom, February 20–March 6, 1965; City Art Gallery, Bristol, United Kingdom, March 13–April 3, 1965; National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, April 10–May 1, 1965; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, May 27–June 27, 1965; Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 24–September 5, 1965; Museum des 20ten Jahrhunderts, Vienna, September 18–October 17, 1965; Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisbon, November 23–December 23, 1965; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, January 22–February 13, 1966; Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden, March 5–April 1, 1966; Öffentliche Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland, April 30–June 5, 1966; Galerija Grada Zagreba, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, June 21–July 10, 1966; Galerija Doma Omladine, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, October 6–16, 1966; Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, April 2–May 15, 1967; Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires, November 29–December 23, 1967 (as Sobre papel: Obras de Arshile Gorky); Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, January 21–February 14, 1968; Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia, March 21–April 5, 1968; Galeria Universitaria Aristos, Mexico City, May 3–June 5, 1968.1965 AC–Brussels and Rotterdam
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings / Arshile Gorky: Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1965, no. 102, as "Voorstudie voor 'Het onbereikbare' / Study for 'The unattainable'". Traveled to: Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, May 22–June 27, 1965; Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 24–September 5, 1965 (Museum Boymans van Beuingen 1965).1965 AC–London
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Tate Gallery, Arshile Gorky: Paintings and Drawings, April 2–May 2, 1965, no. 68, as "Study for The Unattainable".1969 College Park
J. Millard Tawes Fine Arts Center, University of Maryland Art Department and Art Gallery, College Park, The Drawings of Arshile Gorky, March 20–April 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Joyner 1969), no. 28 (Drawings, Sketches, Gouaches), p. 54; fig. 29, ill. in b/w, p. 42, as "Study for The Unattainable," dated 1945–46.1969 Saratoga Springs
Hathorn Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, The Drawings of Arshile Gorky, October 21–November 9, 1969, no. 36, ill. in b/w, as "Study for The Unattainable," 1945–46.1969e New York
M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky: Drawings, November 25–December 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Jordan 1969), no. 93, ill. in b/w, p. 41; p. 59, as "Study for The Unattainable".1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 183a, as "Study for The Unattainable," [not in catalogue]. Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.1995a New York
PaceWildenstein, New York, Drawings, January 27–March 18, 1995, no. 9, as "Study for The Unattainable".1997 Seattle
Meyerson & Nowinski Art Associates, Seattle, Arshile Gorky: Two Decades, February 13–April 20, 1997, ill. in color, as "Study for the Unattainable".2018f New York
Hirschl & Adler Galleries Inc, New York, The Masters: Art Students League Teachers and their Students, October 18–December 1, 2018, ill. in color, frontispiece, as "The Unattainable (Study)".Literature
Levy 1966
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 133, ill. in b/w, p. 157, as "Study for The Unattainable".Notes
Verso, in ink, upper left [likely by Agnes Gorky Phillips]: From The Agnes Phillips Collection; YAP; in pencil, lower right [not in artist's hand]: 62.1062
The verso inscription information and marking are known from the records of Melvin P. Lader.
Commentary
The drawing's overall composition is directly related to Gorky's painting of the same year, The Unattainable (see related work), from which its title derives.
The compositional motifs are also related to those found in the drawings that Gorky created at Crooked Run Farm in Lincoln, Virginia—the country home of Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky's parents, Esther (1896–1990) and John H. Magruder II (1889–1963)—where the Gorky family stayed for extended summers in 1943, 1944, and 1946. In an April 1944 article for Harper's Bazaar, the Museum of Modern Art curator James Johnson Sweeney (1900–1986) wrote of how Gorky had "look[ed] into the grass" during his first summer in Virginia, resulting in a "freshness and personalization of idiom which Gorky had never previously approached, and a new vocabulary of forms."1
1. James Johnson Sweeney, "Five American Painters," Harper's Bazaar (April 1944); reprinted in Ethel Schwabacher, "Arshile Gorky," in Arshile Gorky Memorial Exhibition, exh. cat. (New York: Plantin Press, 1951), 30.
Related Work
