Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Peter Schälchli
D1398
[Drawing, Pastoral]
1946
Graphite pencil and crayon on paper
23 x 29 in. (58.4 x 73.7 cm)
Recto, in pencil, center right: A. Gorky / 46
Verso not seen
Private collection
Exhibitions
1959b New York
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Late Drawings by Gorky, September 28–October 24, 1959. (Exhibition catalogue: Sidney Janis Gallery 1959), no. 17, ill. in b/w, as "Drawing".
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. 114, p. 56, as "Drawing (Pastoral)". Traveled to: Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., March 12–April 14, 1963.
1969e New York
M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky: Drawings, November 25–December 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Jordan 1969), no. 102, p. 60, as "Drawing".
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 221, ill. in b/w, p. 238, 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.
2003–04b New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings, November 20, 2003–February 15, 2004, no. 131, ill. in color, p. 223; p. 245, as "Pastoral". Traveled to: Menil Collection, Houston, March 5–May 9, 2004.
2010 London
Gagosian Gallery, London, Arshile Gorky: Virginia Summer 1946, February 10–April 1, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Gagosian Gallery 2010), ill. in color, as "Pastoral".
2011b New York
Gagosian Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: 1947, May 6–July 1, 2011.
2017 New York
Hauser & Wirth, New York, Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943–47, November 2–December 23, 2017. (Exhibition catalogue: Spender and Devaney 2017).
2019 Venice
Ca'Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice, Italy, Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948, May 8–September 22, 2019, ill. in color, p. 203, as "Untitled".
Literature
Levy 1966
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 169, ill. in b/w, p. 193, as "Drawing".
Jordan 1969
Jordan, Jim M. Gorky: Drawings. New York: M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., 1969. Exhibition catalogue (1969e New York), fig. 4, ill. in b/w, p. 12, as "Untitled Drawing".
Rand 1981
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun & Co. Publishers Inc., and London: George Prior Associated Publishers Ltd., 1981. Monograph, fig. 12–10, ill. in b/w, p. 190, as "Drawing".
Rand 1991
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Monograph, fig. 12–10, ill. in b/w, p. 213, as "Drawing".
Notes
Watermark / Stamp: Strathmore
Strathmore paper with blindstamp, lower left: STRATHMORE / [thistle] / ARTIST

Commentary

The drawing's overall composition is directly related to Gorky's painting Pastoral (see P347), dated to 1947 by the artist, and from which its title derives.

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

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.

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