Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
Print this page

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Photo: Peter Schälchli, Zürich
P011
(Still Life)
c. 1926–27
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)
Front not inscribed
Reverse not seen
Private collection
Provenance
Estate of Arshile Gorky (1948)
Private collection (1975)
Literature
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, fig. 2, ill. in b/w, p. 23; discussed pp. 22, 24, as "Still Life".
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. 11, ill. in b/w, p. 137, as "Still Life".
Taylor 2009d
Taylor, Michael R. "Learning from 'Papa Cézanne': Arshile Gorky and the (Self-) Invention of the Modern Artist." In Cézanne and Beyond, organized by Joseph J. Rishel and Katherine Sachs. Philadelphia and New Haven: Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with Yale University Press, 2009. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 15.6, ill. in color, p. 416, as "Still Life with Wine, Bread, and Eggs".
Notes

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 still life.

According to the research of Jim M. Jordan, Cezanne's painting Le Pain et les oeufs, 1865 (Cincinnati Art Museum), likely served as the source for Gorky's composition.3 

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

2. Ibid.

3. Jim M. Jordan, "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), 22, 24. 

After works by other artists: Paul Cezanne

Related Work

Theme: Still Life