Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY
D0151
[Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia: Objects]
c. 1931–32
Graphite pencil on paper
22 1/4 x 28 3/4 in. (56.5 x 73 cm)
Not inscribed
The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Gift of Richard S. Zeisler. (157.1966)
Exhibitions
1935–36a New York possibly
Guild Art Gallery, New York, Abstract Drawings by Arshile Gorky, December 16, 1935–January 5, 1936.
1962a New York
David Anderson Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Drawings: 1929 to 1934, February 3–March 1, 1962, ill. in b/w, as "abstract pencil 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. 20, ill. in b/w, p. 20, as "Drawing"; p. 53, as "Drawing (Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia)". Traveled to: Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., March 12–April 14, 1963.
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. 7 (Drawings, Sketches, Gouaches), p. 53; fig. 18, ill. in b/w, p. 35, as "Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
1969 Saratoga Springs
Hathorn Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, The Drawings of Arshile Gorky, October 21–November 9, 1969, no. 11, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
1969e New York
M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky: Drawings, November 25–December 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Jordan 1969), no. 19, ill. in b/w, p. 23; p. 56, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
1977 Claremont
Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont, California, Works on Paper 1900–1960 from California Collections, September 18–October 27, 1977, fig. 5, ill. in b/w, p. 39, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia" (not exhibited). Traveled to: M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco, November 11–December 31, 1977.
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 36, ill. in b/w, p. 91, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia," dated c. 1931–32. 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. 9, ill. in color, p. 33; p. 242, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia". Traveled to: Menil Collection, Houston, March 5–May 9, 2004.
Literature
Levy 1966
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 62, ill. in b/w, p. 86; ill., cover, as "Drawing for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia".
Rubin 1968
Rubin, William S. Dada and Surrealist Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1968, ill. in b/w, p. 393.
Karp 1976
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky's Iconography." Arts Magazine (New York) 50, no. 7 (March 1976), ill. in b/w, p. 82, as "Drawing for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia" (1931–32).
Waldman 1981
Waldman, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: Poet in Paint." In Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in collaboration with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1981. Exhibition catalogue, discussed p. 28, p. 29, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Karp 1982
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: The Language of Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1982, fig. 27, ill. in b/w, p. 195, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Lader 1985
Lader, Melvin P. Arshile Gorky. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Monograph, fig. 40, ill. in b/w, p. 48, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Lader et al 1994
Lader, Melvin P., Joseph P. Ruzicka, Martin Kline, and Sarah E. Lawrence. "Catalogue [of Plates]." In Arshile Gorky and the Genesis of Abstraction: Drawings from the Early 1930s. New York: Stephen Mazoh & Co., Inc., Distributed by the University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1994. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 18, ill. in b/w, p. 56, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Akiskal and Akiskal 1996
Akiskal, Kareen K., and Hagop S. Akiskal. "Abstract Expressionism as Psychobiography: The Life and Suicide of Arshile Gorky." In Depression and the Spiritual in Modern Art: Homage to Miró, Schildkraut, Joseph J. and Aurora Otero, eds. Chichester (U.K.) and New York: John Wiley, 1996, fig. 19–5, ill. in b/w, p. 230, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Karmel 2002
Karmel, Pepe. "Arshile Gorky: Anatomical Blackboard." Master Drawings (New York) 40 (2002), fig. 1, ill. in b/w, p. 9, as "Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Brown 2020
Brown, Marilyn R. "Life and Art." In Alice Trumbull Mason: Pioneer of American Abstraction, edited by Elisa Wouk Almino. New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2020, ill. in color, p. 17, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Notes
Watermark / Stamp: Strathmore
Strathmore paper with blindstamp, lower left: STRATHMORE / TRADEMARK [thistle] / DRAWING BOARD

Verso, in pencil, upper left [not in artist's hand]: MJG 4; / #3944; lower left: 157.66; lower right: 7755A.

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

Commentary

In 1929, Gorky began a series of abstract works which is now referred to as "Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia." While he continued working on this until 1936, it was between 1931 and 1934 when he was most dedicated to developing the composition. Ultimately, he produced nearly one hundred drawings and three related paintings. The body of work can be divided into subsets, such as Objects and Enigma, which were Gorky's own titles, as well as the posthumously titled "Fish and Head," "Column with Objects" and "Écorché." This drawing is part of the subset Objects, of which there are thirty-two known examples. Its title derives from that which Gorky gave to the drawing D0140, when it was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in January 1941 (see that work's commentary).

The partially-erased top third of the drawing's composition also relates to the subset “Fish and Head," for its close affinities with Giorgio de Chirico’s (1888–1978) 1914 painting, The Fatal Temple (Philadelphia Museum of Art) (for more information on Gorky’s use of The Fatal Temple, see commentary for D0180). 

New York attorney George Siegel (1910–1985) was an early owner of the drawing and his collection included at least eight Gorky drawings, possibly all acquired from Boyer Galleries after it relocated to New York in November 1936. The gallery had exhibited a group of unidentified Gorky drawings at its original location in Philadelphia over a year earlier and the gallery’s owner C. Philip Boyer (1892–1981) never returned the consigned drawings to the artist nor did he pay for them. As Dorothy C. Miller (1904–2003), a curator at the Museum of Modern Art and a friend of the artist, later recalled, "That awful man named Boyer stole a great many drawings from [Gorky]."1

Boyer, whose short-lived gallery was chronically in debt, may have held on to the drawings with the hope of selling them at a later date and, in fact, was believed to have sold a group to an unidentified individual. In 1950, Julien Levy wrote to Ethel Schwabacher who was preparing the Gorky memorial exhibition for the Whitney Museum of American Art: "And there was some man, I think in Philadelphia, who bought a large collection of early Gorky drawings . . ."2 

A letter dated September 14, 1959, from Siegel to Martha Jackson (1907–1969) of Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, confirms that Siegel sold Jackson eight of his Gorky drawings, including this one, all of which date from the early 1930s.3

1. Hayden Herrera, Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003), 220. This is corroborated by Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky Phillips in a letter to the Poindexter Gallery from 1956: "A lot of Gorky's paintings [sic] of the late 20's and perhaps some early 30's disappeared along with some character with a gallery in Philadelphia..." Letter from Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky Phillips to Patricia Passloff [Poindexter Gallery], December 29, 1956, in The 30s: Painting in New York, exh. cat. (New York: Poindexter Gallery, 1957).

2. Letter from Julien Levy to Ethel Schwabacher, May 5, 1950, Arshile Gorky Research Collection (1936–1993), Francis Mulhall Achilles Library, Archives, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. 

3. Letter from George Siegel to Martha Jackson, September 14, 1959, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, State University of New York.

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