Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

enlarge

Photo: Jerry L. Thompson

D1288

(Untitled)

1946

Graphite pencil and crayon on laid paper

19 1/8 x 24 7/8 in. (48.6 x 63.2 cm)

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

Private collection

Provenance

The artist

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

Julien Levy, Bridgewater, Connecticut (1949)

William N. Copley, New York (after 1964; by 1966)

[Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, The William N. Copley Collection, November 5, 1979, lot 13]

Harold Diamond, New York (November 5, 1979)

Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, Menlo Park, California (1981)

[Christie's, New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art: Morning Session, November 16, 2018, lot 613]

Private collection (November 16, 2018)

Exhibitions

1947a New York possibly

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

1964 New Haven possibly

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, Max Ernst and Arshile Gorky from the Collection of Julien Levy, March 19–May 3, 1964, no. 26, as "Drawing".

1969 College Park possibly

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. 34 (Drawings, Sketches, Gouaches), p. 54, as "Untitled".

1978d New York

Washburn Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, In Memory, November 2–28, 1978, no. 11, as "Untitled".

1981–82 New York

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 230, ill. in b/w, p. 242, 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.

1988–89 Stanford

Stanford University Museum of Art, California, Twentieth-Century Drawings from the Anderson Collection: Auguste Rodin to Elizabeth Murray, November 15, 1988–February 19, 1989, no. 19, as "Untitled".

1989–90 Madrid

Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, October 17–December 23, 1989, no. 84, ill. in color, p. 150, as "Untitled". Traveled to: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 19–March 25, 1990.

2000–01 San Francisco

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection, October 7, 2000–January 15, 2001, no. 101, ill. in color, pl. 177, p. 313, as "Untitled".

2003–04b New York

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings, November 20, 2003–February 15, 2004, no. 94, ill. in color, p. 171; p. 244, as "Untitled," [exhibited in New York only]. Traveled to: Menil Collection, Houston, March 5–May 9, 2004.

2009–10 Philadelphia

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 151, ill. in color, p. 312; p. 392, as "Untitled". Traveled to: Tate Modern, London, February 10–May 3, 2010 (Gale 2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, June 6–September 20, 2010 (Gale 2010).

2018 Stanford

Stanford University Museum of Art, California, Salon Style: Collected Marks on Paper, March 8–August 20, 2018, as "Untitled".

2024b New York

Adler Beatty, New York, Manic Pixie Nightmare Drawings, March 21–May 3, 2024, as "Untitled".

Literature

Reiff 1963a

Reiff, Robert. "The Late Works of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Estimate." Art Journal (New York) 22, no. 3 (Spring 1963), fig. 4, ill. b/w, p. 152, as "Drawing".

Levy 1966

Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 165, ill. in b/w, p. 189, as "Untitled".

Reiff 1976

Reiff, Robert. "Arshile Gorky's Object Matter." Arts Magazine (New York) 50, no. 7 (March 1976), ill. in b/w, p. 93, 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.

Baker 2000

Baker, Kenneth. "Borrowed Glory." San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2000, discussed p. E3, as Untitled.

Notes

Watermark / Stamp: Strathmore

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

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

D1281

Graphite pencil and crayon on laid paper