Catalogue Entry
Reverse, on canvas: ↑ / TOP / 1927 / A. GORKY / [paraph]
Commentary
Gorky often backdated his paintings and also frequently reworked the same canvas over many years. Here, the date inscribed on the reverse of the original canvas, "1927," could refer to an earlier iteration of the painting. Stylistically, it is more likely that the painting was completed c. 1928–29. It should be noted, however, that when the work was first exhibited in 1935, as Composition No. 1, the date of 1927 was given.1
The painting's first owners, Isobel (1904–1995) and I[sadore] Donald Grossman (c. 1893–1980), visited Gorky's studio at 36 Union Square around March 1937 and purchased three paintings directly from the artist (P052, P067, and P174). Their introduction to Gorky was made through I. Donald's brother-in-law Sidney Janis (1896–1989) who later became one of the postwar era's most important art dealers and represented the Estate of Arshile Gorky shortly after he opened his New York gallery in 1948.
Recalling their purchase, Isobel Grossman later wrote: "Gorky's studio was large and empty of all but the painter's necessities. The floors were scrupulously clean, and the walls very high and white. . . . He had carefully arranged two folding chairs for the best possible viewing. . . . He described his method of working out ideas and problems in many drawings before transferring them to canvas. . . . A few days later Gorky arrived at our apartment with the three paintings [we had bought]. All at once the room became transformed and we drank champagne to celebrate the great event."2
In a letter to his sister Vartoosh Mooradian (née Adoian; 1906–1991), dated March 23, 1937, Gorky presents a differing account of the event: "[Wednesday] evening the brother-in-law of Mr. Cianovich [sic] [Sidney Janovitch/Janis] and his wife came here and they liked my three paintings a lot but we couldn't come to an agreement about the price. They said that they'll come back and somehow we'll make a deal. . . . [T]he others [collectors] flutter likewise."3
1. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Abstract Painting in America, February 12–March 22, 1935. Exhibition catalogue with text by Stuart Davis.
2. Isobel Grossman, "If Memory Serves," in Arshile Gorky: Drawings to Paintings, exh. cat. (Austin, T.X.: University Art Museum, University of Texas at Austin, 1975), 12.
3. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, March 23, 1937, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York; Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, March 23, 1937, in Matthew Spender, ed., Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song: A Life in Letters and Documents, trans. Father Krikor Maksoudian (Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2018), 150.