Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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© The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY
Self-Portrait at the Age of 9, 1913, 1928, P023. Verso: Inscription on the reverse
Inscription on the reverse
P023
Self-Portrait at the Age of 9, 1913
1928
Oil on canvas
12 1/4 x 10 1/4 in. (31.1 x 26 cm)
Front not inscribed
Reverse, on canvas, center: Self Portrait / at the age of / 9 / [paraph], 1913
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Gift of Léon Constantiner, 2002 (2002.145)
Exhibitions
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 8, ill. in b/w, p. 68, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine," dated c. 1927. Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
1989–90 Madrid
Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, October 17–December 23, 1989, no. 2, ill. in color, p. 58, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine," dated 1927. Traveled to: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 19–March 25, 1990.
1993c New York
Jason McCoy Inc, New York, Expressive Heads: Including works by Bacon, Baziotes, Dubuffet, Gorky, Matisse, Moore, Picasso, and Pollock, May 6–June 12, 1993, no. 4, ill. in color, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine, 1913".
2009–10 Philadelphia
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 5, ill. in color, p. 164; p. 386, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine". 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
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. 2, ill. in b/w, p. 44; p. 45, as Self-Portrait at the Age of 9, 1913, dated c. 1925–26.
Herrera 1976a
Herrera, Hayden. "Gorky's Self Portraits: The Artist by Himself." Art in America (New York) 64 (March–April 1976), fig. 3, ill. in b/w, p. 58, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine".
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 at the Age of Nine".
Karp 1982
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: The Language of Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1982, fig. 3, ill. in b/w, p. 171, as "Self Portrait at the Age of Nine".
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. 21–22, 56, as "Self Portrait at the Age of Nine, 1913".
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. 23, ill. in b/w, p. 149, as "Self Portrait at the Age of Nine, 1913".
Lader 1985
Lader, Melvin P. Arshile Gorky. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Monograph, fig. 3, ill. in color, p. 10, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine," dated c. 1927.
Anfam 1990a
Anfam, David. Abstract Expressionism. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1990, fig. 9, ill. in b/w, p. 18, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine, c. 1913".
Anfam 2002
Anfam, David. "Arshile Gorky's Portraits: 'Look Homeward, Angel.'" In Arshile Gorky Portraits. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2002. Exhibition catalogue, ill. in color, p. 8, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine," dated c. 1925–26.
Messinger 2002
Messinger, Lisa M. "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2001–2002." The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) 50, no. 2 (Fall 2002), ill. in color, p. 41, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine".
Herrera 2003
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 69, ill. in b/w, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine, 1913".
Mattison 2009
Matttison, Robert S. Arshile Gorky: Works and Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafica, 2009. Monograph, ill. in color, p. 17, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine".
Theriault 2009a
Theriault, Kim S. Rethinking Arshile Gorky. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. Monograph, fig. 9, ill. in b/w, p. 42, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine, 1913".
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. 15.10, ill. in color, p. 420, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine".
Craft 2012
Craft, Catherine. An Audience of Artists: Dada, Neo-Dada, and the Emergence of Abstract Expressionism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012, fig. 16, ill. in b/w, p. 94, as "Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine".
Notes
The inscription on the reverse is known from a photograph provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The stretcher bars have been replaced.

Commentary

The painting's lifetime title derives from an inscription in Gorky's hand on the reverse of the canvas, reading: "Self-Portrait at the age of 9, 1913."

The painting is thought to be informed by Paul Cézanne's (1839–1906) Louis Guillaume (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), a painted portrait, dated 1879–1890, which was illustrated in Cahiers d'Art, a journal that Gorky read regularly.1 During Gorky's lifetime, the painting was also displayed in the Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Paul Cézanne which opened at Wildenstein & Company, in New York, in January 1928.

The painting's first owner was Helen Austin (1904–2004), an artist who studied with Gorky at the Grand Central School of Art in New York for several years beginning in 1925. The only woman among a tight circle of friends in the class, she was affectionately known as "Sis." After class Helen and her husband, Nathaniel (1897–1975), would have dinner at Richard's, a local restaurant off of Fourth Street, where Gorky frequently joined them.2 

1. 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), 149; Cahiers d'Art 2, no. 10 (Paris, 1927).

2. Hayden Herrera, Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003), 145.

After works by other artists: Paul Cezanne

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