Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Late Drawings by Gorky, September 28–October 24, 1959. (Exhibition catalogue: Sidney Janis Gallery 1959), no. 10, ill. in b/w, as "Drawing," dated c. 1945.

1960c Minneapolis

University Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Gorky Drawings, October 27–December 2, 1960, as "Drawing".

1962a Los Angeles

Everett Ellin Gallery, Los Angeles, Arshile Gorky: Forty Drawings from the Period 1929 thru 1947, April 9–May 5, 1962, no. 32, ill. in b/w, as "Untitled," dated c. 1946.

1969e New York

M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky: Drawings, November 25–December 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Jordan 1969), no. 130, ill. in b/w, p. 49; p. 61, as "Virginia—Summer".

1970 Wilmington

Wilmington Society of Fine Arts, Delaware Art Center, Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture from New York Galleries, April 2–26, 1970.

1981–82 New York

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 233, ill. in b/w, p. 243, as "Virginia—Summer". Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.

1990a New York

Arnold Herstand & Company, New York, Surrealism: From Paris to New York, May 12–Summer 1990, ill. in color, as "Virginia—Summer".

1995 Houston

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Collects: Willem de Kooning and His Contemporaries, March 17–May 21, 1995.

1995–96 Fort Worth / Buffalo

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (organizers), Arshile Gorky: The Breakthrough Years, 1995–96, no. 41, ill. in color, p. 171, as "Virginia—Summer". Traveled to: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., May 7–September 17, 1995; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, October 13–December 31, 1995; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, January 13–March 17, 1996.

2003–04b New York

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings, November 20, 2003–February 15, 2004, no. 126, ill. in color, p. 215; p. 245, as "Virginia—Summer". Traveled to: Menil Collection, Houston, March 5–May 9, 2004.

2006 Fresno

Fresno Art Museum and the Armenian Museum (organizers), Fresno Art Museum, California, Vosdanik Manouk Adoian a.k.a. Arshile Gorky, April 7–June 4, 2006, [not in catalogue].

2009–10 Philadelphia

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 150, ill. in color, p. 311; p. 392, as "Virginia—Summer". 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).

Literature

Barbara Mathes Gallery 1989

Barbara Mathes Gallery. Selections: Fall 1989. New York: Barbara Mathes Gallery, 1989, no. 23, ill. in color, as "Virginia—Summer".

Spender and Devaney 2017

Spender, Saskia and Edith Devaney. Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943–47. Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2017. Exhibition catalogue (2017 New York), ill. in color, p. 108; p. 139, as "Virginia—Summer".

Field 2021

Field, Parker. "Beyond The Limit." In Arshile Gorky: Beyond The Limit, edited by Jennifer Magee. Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2021. Exhibition catalogue, discussed p. 12; ill. in color, p. 31, as "Untitled (Virginia Summer)".

Karmel 2021

Karmel, Pepe. "The Blue Veil: Arshile Gorky's Untitled (Virginia Summer)." In Arshile Gorky: Beyond The Limit, edited by Jennifer Magee. Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2021. Exhibition catalogue, discussed pp. 18–19.

Notes

Watermark / Stamp: Michallet

Michallet paper with watermark, lower left: MICHALLET / FRANCE; lower right: UFPC [three flowers]

Verso, in pencil, lower left [not in artist's hand]: 5; A; upper right: 21; center right: #9; 18 x 24 inches [sideways]

The verso inscription information and marking are known from documentation provided by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Commentary

The drawing was made during the summer of 1946 at Crooked Run Farm in Lincoln, Virginia—the country home of Gorky’s in-laws, the Magruders. Despite the fact that Gorky's body was weathering the effects of an unforeseen colostomy operation performed in March and the barn which he usually used as a studio had been razed by fire the previous autumn, the summer of 1946—spanning from mid-July to early November—proved his most productive spell yet. As Gorky reported to his younger sister Vartoosh (m. Mooradian; 1906–1991) shortly before returning to New York: "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."¹ Of the prolific impulse to draw that feverishly occupied Gorky that summer, the "Virginia Summer" series is one such manifestation. The drawing's overall composition is closely related to several works by Gorky, including the posthumously titled painting Virginia Summer (see P397 and related work).

1. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, November 17, 1939, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York; Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, November 17, 1939, 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

Catalogue Entry

Commentary

Theme: Virginia landscape