Catalogue Entry

Commentary

In an interview published in the September 15, 1926, edition of the New York Evening Post, Gorky praised modern art and named Paul Cezanne (1839–1906), Henri Matisse (1869–1954), and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) as "greater artists than the old masters."¹ Of these, he continued, "Cézanne is the greatest artist, shall I say, that has lived."² A number of Gorky's early paintings convey his intense study of Cezanne, including this landscape. According to his wife Agnes "Mougouch" (1921–2013), Gorky claimed that it was the first work he painted in the United States, however, this is unconfirmed.³   

Although the title is identified as lifetime in Jim M. Jordan's catalogue raisonné, there is no known extant documentation confirming its origin with the artist and we have therefore designated it as posthumous.⁴ 

1. "Fetish of Antique Stifles Art Here, Says Gorky Kin," New York Evening Post (September 15, 1926): 17.

2. Ibid.

^{3. Agnes Gorky Fielding, as quoted in Jim M. Jordan, "Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings," in Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater, The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue (New York and London: New York University Press, 1982), 134–35.}

^{4. Ibid, 134.}