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Photo: Peter Schälchli
P072
Still Life
1929
Oil on canvas
47 x 60 in. (119.4 x 152.4 cm)
Front not inscribed
Reverse, on canvas, upper right: ↑ TOP / 1929 / A. Gorky
Reverse, on canvas, upper right: ↑ TOP / 1929 / A. Gorky
Private collection
Provenance
Private collection (1975)
Private collection (October 2019)
Exhibitions
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky Memorial Exhibition, January 5–February 18, 1951, no. 7, ill. in b/w, p. 14; p. 46, as Still Life. Traveled to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, March 4–April 22, 1951; San Francisco Museum of Art, California, May 9–July 9, 1951.
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Paintings by Arshile Gorky from 1929 to 1948, February 5–March 3, 1962. (Exhibition catalogue: Sidney Janis Gallery 1962), no. 4, ill. in b/w, as Still Life, dated 1929–32.
1962 Venice possibly
XXXI Biennale di Venezia: Internazionale d'Arte, U.S. Pavillion, Venice, Italy, Arshile Gorky, June 16–October 7, 1962, no. 2, p. 113, as "Natura morta".Newark Museum, New Jersey, Murals without Walls: Arshile Gorky's Aviation Murals Rediscovered, November 15, 1978–March 11, 1979. (Exhibition catalogue: O'Connor 1978b), no. 2, ill. in b/w, p. 66, as Still Life, dated c. 1930. Traveled to: Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York, July 1–August 26, 1979; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 4–November 25, 1979; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, December 23, 1979–February 3, 1980; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 28–April 20, 1980; Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California, May 10–June 22, 1980; Queens Museum, New York, September 6–November 2, 1980.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 23, ill. in b/w, p. 80, as Still Life, dated 1929–32. Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
Gagosian Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Paintings and Drawings, 1929–1942, October 27, 1998–January 9, 1999, ill. in color, pp. 18–19; p. 94, as Still Life.
Literature
Coates, Robert M. "The Art Galleries." The New Yorker 26, no. 48 (January 20, 1951), discussed p. 60, as Still Life.
Loftus, John. "Arshile Gorky: A Monograph." M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, New York, 1952, pl. VI, ill. in b/w, as Still Life.
Schapiro, Meyer. "Gorky: The Creative Influence." Artnews (New York) 56, no. 5 (September 1957), fig. 3, ill. in b/w, p. 29, as Still Life.
Schwabacher, Ethel. Arshile Gorky. Introduction by Meyer Schapiro. New York: The Macmillan Company for the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1957. Monograph, fig. 8, ill. in b/w, p. 39, as Still Life.
Reiff, Robert F. "A Stylistic Analysis of Arshile Gorky's Art from 1943–1948." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, 1961, fig. 10, ill. in b/w, p. 288, as Still Life.
Boatto, Alberto. "L'itinerario di Gorky." Arte Oggi (Rome) 14 (June–December 1962), discussed p. 12, as "Natura morta".
"Aspetti della Biennale: Cronachetta minore (di corridoio)." Le Arti (Milan), no. 7 (July 1962), ill. in color, p. 16.
Seitz, William C. Arshile Gorky: Paintings, Drawings, Studies. New York: Museum of Modern Art, in collaboration with the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., 1962. Exhibition catalogue (1962–63b New York), ill. in b/w, p. 12, as Still Life.
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 48, ill. in b/w, p. 72, as Still Life, dated 1929–32.
Sandler, Irving H. The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970, fig. 3–2, ill. in b/w , p. 45, as Still Life.
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. 25, as Still Life.
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: The Language of Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1982, fig. 48, ill. in b/w, p. 216, as Still Life.
Millard, Charles W. "Arshile Gorky." The Hudson Review (New York) 35, no. 1 (Spring 1982), discussed, p. 106, as Still Life.
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. 34–35, as Still Life.
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. 72, ill. in b/w (repr. 90 degrees counterclockwise), pp. 196–98, as Still Life.
Seitz, William C. Abstract Expressionist Painting in America. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press for the National Gallery of Art, 1983, fig. 47, ill. in b/w, as Still Life.
Lader, Melvin P. Arshile Gorky. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Monograph, fig. 21, ill. in b/w, p. 27, as Still Life, dated 1929–32.
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 9, ill. in color, as Still Life.
Spender, Matthew, ed. Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song: A Life in Letters and Documents. Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2018, ill. in color, p. 52, as Still Life.
Notes
The inscription on the reverse is known from Jordan and Goldwater. The stretcher bars have been replaced.
Commentary
The painting's lifetime title, Still Life, is that by which it was shown in Gorky's debut solo museum exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1941.1
According to the art historian Meyer Schapiro (1904–1996), who knew Gorky, the painting is informed by Pablo Picasso's (1881–1973) painting Mandoline et portée de musique, 1923 (Dickinson, London/New York). Schapiro writes, "It is hard to believe that this painting was done in New York by an artist who had never been in Paris and knew only the few works of Picasso that had been shown here. . . . He belonged then to the School of Paris more surely than many painters living in France."2
1. Typed shipping manifest, August 5, 1941, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Archives.
2. Meyer Schapiro, "Introduction," in Arshile Gorky, by Ethel Schwabacher (New York: The Macmillan Company for the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1957), 12.
After works by other artists: Pablo Picasso
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