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Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY
P010
(Self-Portrait)
1926–27
Oil on linen
19 1/2 x 14 1/4 in. (49.5 x 36.2 cm)
Front not inscribed
Reverse not seen
Art Institute of Chicago.
Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection (2018.293)
Provenance
The artist
Hans Burkhardt, New York, gift of the artist (by 1937)
[Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York / Los Angeles (1972)]
[Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, Modern and Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, May 22, 1975, lot 602A; bought in]
Hans and Thordis Burkhardt, Los Angeles
[Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, Modern Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture, June 8, 1977, lot 47]
Allan Stone Gallery, New York (June 8, 1977)
Lindy and Edwin A. Bergman, Chicago (October 5, 1977)
Art Institute of Chicago, by gift (September 12, 2018)
Exhibitions
1958 Pasadena
Pasadena Art Museum, California, Paintings and Drawings by Arshile Gorky, January 5–February 2, 1958.
1966 Laguna Beach
Laguna Beach Art Association, California, Hans Burkhardt, Arshile Gorky, Young Printmakers, April 2–May 1, 1966, ill., as "Self-Portrait," dated 1928.
1975–76 Austin
University Art Museum, University of Texas at Austin, Arshile Gorky: Drawings to Paintings, October 12–November 23, 1975. (Exhibition catalogue: University of Texas at Austin 1975), p. 103, as "Self Portrait," dated 1927–28. Traveled to: San Francisco Museum of Art, December 4, 1975–January 12, 1976; Neuberger Museum, Purchase College, State University of New York, February 10–March 14, 1976; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York, April 4–May 9, 1976.
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 9, ill. in b/w, p. 69, as "Self-Portrait," dated c. 1928–31. Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
Literature
Barlow 1958
Barlow, Jarvis. "Paintings by Arshile Gorky at Art Museum." Independent, Star-News (Pasadena, CA), January 12, 1958, ill. in b/w, p. 10, as "Self-Portrait".
Langsner 1958b
Langsner, Jules. "Gorky: Myth vs. Reality." Artnews (New York) 56 (February 1958), ill. in b/w, p. 47, as "Self-Portrait".
Reuschel 1963
J.R. [Jon Reuschel]. "Arshile Gorky, Art Center in La Jolla." Artforum (San Francisco) 1, no. 11 (May 1963), discussed p. 47, as "Self-portrait 1927-28".
Silver 1963
C.S.S. [Cathy S. Silver]. "Gorky, When the Going Was Rough." Artnews (New York) 62, no. 2 (April 1963), discussed p. 61, as "a penetratingly Cézannesque self-portrait in oil, 1926–27".
Herrera 1975b
Herrera, Hayden. "The Artist's Self Image: Self Portraits by Arshile Gorky." In Arshile Gorky: Drawings to Paintings. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1975. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 3, ill. in b/w, p. 45, as "Self-Portrait," dated c. 1928–31.
Herrera 1976a
Herrera, Hayden. "Gorky's Self Portraits: The Artist by Himself." Art in America (New York) 64 (March–April 1976), fig. 4, ill. in b/w, p. 58, as "Self-Portrait".
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. 20, as "Self-Portrait".
Karp 1982
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: The Language of Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1982, fig. 5, ill. in b/w, p. 173, as "Self Portrait".
Jordan 1982a
Jordan, Jim M. "The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: New Discoveries, New Sources, and Chronology." In The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue, by Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater. New York and London: New York University Press, 1982, discussed pp. 20–22, as "Self Portrait".
Jordan 1982b
Jordan, Jim M. "Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings." In The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue, by Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater. New York and London: New York University Press, 1982, no. 10, ill. in b/w, pp. 135–36, as "Self Portrait".
Corrin 1990
Corrin, Lisa. "Toward Armenia: Notes of a Journey." In Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1990. Exhibition catalogue, ill. in b/w, p. 167, as "Self Portrait".
Ades 1997
Ades, Dawn. Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. Margherita Andreotti, ed. Chicago and New York: Art Institute of Chicago and Thames and Hudson, 1997, fig. 72, ill. in color, p. 140, as "Self-Portrait".
Venn and Weinberg 1999
Venn, Beth and Adam D. Weinberg. Frames of Reference: Looking at American Art, 1900–1950: Works from the Whitney Museum of American Art. New York and Berkeley: Whitney Museum of American Art and University of California Press, 1999, ill. in color, p. 77, as "Self-Portrait".
Herrera 2003
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 68, ill. in b/w, as "Self-Portrait".
Dervaux 2009
Dervaux, Isabelle. "Arshile Gorky (1904–1948)." In Cézanne and American Modernism. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Montclair Art Museum and The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2009. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 1, ill. in color, p. 208, as "Self-Portrait".
Notes
On loan: Art Institute of Chicago, 1991–September 12, 2018.

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 self-portrait. 

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.3

The painting was a gift to the Swiss-American artist Hans Burkhardt (1904–1994) who immigrated to the United States in 1924. Burkhardt began taking lessons with Gorky at the Grand Central School of Art in New York in 1928 and studied privately with the artist from 1929 until around 1937, with a brief hiatus between 1931 and 1934.4 Around May 1937, Burkhardt moved to California, where he remained for the rest of his life. 

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

2. Ibid.

3. Jim M. Jordan, "Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings," in The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue, by Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater (New York and London: New York University Press, 1982), 135.

4. Burkhardt provided conflicting accounts of this history and its timeline. See: Letter from Hans Burkhardt to Ethel K. Schwabacher, May 10, 1949, Arshile Gorky Research Collection (1936-1993), Francis Mulhall Achilles Library, Archives, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hans Burkhardt, interview by Paul J. Karlstrom, November 25, 1974, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

After works by other artists: Paul Cezanne

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