Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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Catalogue Entry

D0159
[Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia: Objects]
1931–32
India ink, chalk, and graphite pencil on laid paper
15 1/2 x 22 1/2 in. (39.4 x 57.2 cm)
Not inscribed
Exhibitions
David Anderson Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Drawings: 1929 to 1934, February 3–March 1, 1962, ill. in b/w, as "ink and chalk forms".
Everett Ellin Gallery, Los Angeles, Arshile Gorky: Forty Drawings from the Period 1929 thru 1947, April 9–May 5, 1962, no. 6, ill. in b/w, as "Ink and Chalk Forms," dated c. 1932.
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Arshile Gorky: Drawings and Paintings, April 29–May 10, 1974, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia".
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, [unknown title], September 1974.
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Modern Masters: A Selection, November 21–December 31, 1975, ill. in b/w, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Modern and Contemporary Masters: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, February 11–March 24, 1984, no. 35, ill. in b/w, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Acquavella Galleries, New York, XIX & XX Century Master Drawings and Watercolors, April 26–May 26, 1988, no. 14, ill. in b/w, p. 35 (upside down), as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, Nostalgia".
Beth Urdang Fine Art, Chicago, Biomorphic and Surreal: 1930–1960, February 15–March 20, 1991, no. 7, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigman, Nostalgia".
Anthony Ralph Gallery, New York, Modern Drawings, October–November 1991, no. 33.
Meyerson & Nowinski Art Associates, Seattle, Arshile Gorky: Two Decades, February 13–April 20, 1997.
Gagosian Gallery, London, Drawings, January 29–April 17, 2004, ill. in color, p. 38 (upside down), as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Literature
Seldis, Henry J. "In the Galleries: Show Traces Gorky's Stylistic Development." Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1962, discussed p. 5, as "Ink and Chalk Forms".
Notes
Watermark / Stamp: Michallet
Michallet paper with watermark, lower left: MICHALLET / FRANCE

The verso inscription information is 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). 

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 . . ."

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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