Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

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D1281

(Untitled)

1946

Graphite pencil and crayon on laid paper

19 1/8 x 24 3/4 in. (48.6 x 62.9 cm)

Recto, in pencil, lower left: A Gorky / 46
Verso not inscribed

Private collection

Provenance

The artist

Julien Levy Gallery, New York (possibly by February 1947; by 1948)

Julien Levy, Bridgewater, Connecticut (1949)

Estate of Julien Levy (1981)

[Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Julien Levy Collection, November 4, 1981, lot 56]

Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston (November 4, 1981) . . .

Marisa del Re Gallery, New York (by September 1982)

[David McKee Gallery, New York]

Katherine Komaroff Fine Arts Inc., New York (by 1989)

Barbara Mathes Gallery Inc., New York (January 1989)

[Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe / New York (1990)]

[Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, Part I, November 13, 1991, lot 15]

Private collection (November 13, 1991)

Exhibitions

1947a New York possibly

Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Colored Drawings, February 18–25, 1947.

1951a New York

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky Memorial Exhibition, January 5–February 18, 1951, no. 87, ill. in b/w, p. 29; p. 48, as "Drawing". Traveled to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, March 4–April 22, 1951; San Francisco Museum of Art, California, May 9–July 9, 1951.

1961–62 IC–MoMA

Museum of Modern Art, New York, International Council (organizer), Mostra di Disegni Americani Moderni, 1961–62, as "Drawing," [Spoleto: no. 21; Jerusalem: no. 21; Paris: no. 21; London: no. 20; Bonn: no. 22]. Traveled to: Palazzo Ancaiani, Spoleto, Italy, June 16–July 16, 1961 (as Mostra di Disegni Americani Moderni); Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem, August 21–October 3, 1961 (as Modern American Drawings); Centre Culturel Américain, Paris, June 6–July 10, 1962 (as Dessins Américains Contemporains); USIS Gallery, American Embassy, London, July 16–August 11, 1962 (as Contemporary American Drawings); Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Bonn, Germany, August 28–September 30, 1962 (as Amerikanische Zeichnungen: 1942–1961).

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. 88, p. 55, as "Drawing". Traveled to: Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., March 12–April 14, 1963.

1982b New York

Marisa del Re Gallery, New York, Selected Works on Paper, March 2–April 3, 1982, as "Untitled".

1982 MFA Houston

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (organizer), Pinacothèque Nationale, Athens, Greece, Modern American Paintings, September 20–November 7, 1982, no. 28, as "Untitled".

1984 Houston

Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, Master Drawings: 1928–1984, March–April 1984, no. 3, ill. in color, as "Untitled".

1986–87 Newport Beach

Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California, The Interpretive Link: Abstract Surrealism into Abstract Expressionism: Works on Paper, 1938–1948, July 16–September 14, 1986, no. 15, ill. in b/w, p. 72, as "Untitled". Traveled to: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 13, 1986–January 21, 1987; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, February 21–April 19, 1987.

1989–90 Madrid

Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, October 17–December 23, 1989, no. 85, ill. in color, p. 150, as "Untitled". Traveled to: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 19–March 25, 1990.

Literature

Loftus 1952

Loftus, John. "Arshile Gorky: A Monograph." M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, New York, 1952, pl. XXIX, ill. in b/w, as "Drawing".

Reiff 1961

Reiff, Robert F. "A Stylistic Analysis of Arshile Gorky's Art from 1943–1948." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, 1961, fig. 35, ill. in b/w, p. 313, as "Drawing".

Levy 1966

Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 153, ill. in b/w, p. 177, as "Drawing".

Seitz 1983

Seitz, William C. Abstract Expressionist Painting in America. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press for the National Gallery of Art, 1983, fig. 77, ill. in b/w, as "Untitled".

Barbara Mathes Gallery 1989

Barbara Mathes Gallery. Selections: Fall 1989. New York: Barbara Mathes Gallery, 1989, no. 22, ill. in color, as "Untitled".

Notes

Watermark / Stamp: Strathmore

Strathmore paper with blindstamp, lower left: STRATHMORE / [thistle] / ARTIST

Verso, in pencil, lower left [not in artist's hand]: Julien Levy; JL-10; upper right: ↑; for [illegible] / 1948 / $250 -

The verso inscription information and marking are known from the records of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.

Commentary

The drawing was likely created at Crooked Run Farm during Gorky’s third and final summer there in 1946.¹ In late July that year, the Gorky family, including daughters Maro (b. 1943) and Natasha (b. 1945), left New York for 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). Notwithstanding the destruction, by fire, of the barn which Gorky had repurposed as a temporary studio on the property, as well as his ongoing recovery from a colostomy operation in March, the extended summer of 1946—from mid-July to early November—proved his most productive spell yet. As the artist reported to his younger sister Vartoosh (m. Mooradian; 1906–1991), shortly before the family’s return to New York from Virginia: “this summer I finished a lot of drawings, 292 of them. Never have I been able to do so much work, and they are good too.”²

Based on the fact that this drawing was known to have been in the inventory of the Julien Levy Gallery, it is probable, though unconfirmed, that it was included in the gallery's exhibition Arshile Gorky: Colored Drawings, which opened in mid-February 1947.

1. The family also visited for extended summer stays in 1943 and 1944.

2. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, November 17, 1946, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York; Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, November 17, 1946, 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), 406.

Related Work

Theme: Virginia landscape

(Untitled)

1946

Graphite pencil and crayon on laid paper

D1288

Graphite pencil and crayon on laid paper