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Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

P112
(Portrait of Vartoosh)
c. 1935–37
Oil on canvas
11 x 15 3/8 in. (28 x 39 cm)
Not inscribed
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) on Deposit at CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
Provenance
Estate of Arshile Gorky (1948)
Vartoosh [Adoian] Mooradian, Chicago, by gift (1952)
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), by bequest (April 24, 1991)
Exhibitions
1984–85 Lisbon
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro de Arte Moderna José Azeredo Perdigão, Lisbon, Arshile Gorky: Collection Mooradian, October 24–November 25, 1984, no. 4, ill. in color, p. 92, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933. Traveled to: Centre Culturel Portugais, Paris, January 17–March 9, 1985.
2002d New York
Gagosian Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Portraits, March 20–April 27, 2002. (Exhibition catalogue: Gagosian Gallery 2002), ill. in color, p. 62, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated c. 1933–34.
2014–15 Lisbon
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro de Arte Moderna José Azeredo Perdigão, Lisbon, Arshile Gorky e a Coleção, June 4, 2014–May 31, 2015, ill. in color, p. 3, as "Portrait of Vartoosh / Retrato de Vartoosh," dated 1933.
2019 Venice
Ca'Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice, Italy, Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948, May 8–September 22, 2019, ill. in color, p. 85, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933.
Literature
Mooradian 1978
Mooradian, Karlen. Arshile Gorky Adoian. Chicago: Gilgamesh Press, 1978. Monograph, fig. 44, ill. in color, p. 63, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933.
Mooradian 1980
Mooradian, Karlen. The Many Worlds of Arshile Gorky. Chicago: Gilgamesh Press, 1980. Monograph, fig. 21, ill. in b/w (detail), p. 76, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933.
Mooradian 1982
Mooradian, Karlen, and Takahiko Okada. アーシル・ゴーキー: ある異邦人との対話 (The Life of Arshile Gorky). Tokyo: PARCO Co. Ltd., 1982. Monograph, no. 4, ill. in color, pp. 16–17, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933.
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 p. 51, as "Portrait of Vartoosh".
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. 112, ill. in b/w, pp. 240–41, as "Portrait of Vartoosh".
Herrera 2002
Herrera, Hayden. "Gorky's Distant Likenesses." Art in America (New York) 90 (November 2002), ill. in color, p. 150, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933.
Thil 2014
Thil, Marie-Anne. "Arshile Gorky: entre le surrélisme et l'art abstrait." France Arménie (October 2014), ill. in color, p. 68, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933.
Spender 2018a
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. 155, as "Portrait of Vartoosh," dated 1933–34.
Notes

The reverse inscription information is known from the records of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.

On loan: Art Institute of Chicago, March 12, 1964–September 19, 1984.

On loan: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 1985–present.

Commentary

The painting is a portrait of Gorky's younger sister Vartoosh Mooradian (née Adoian; 1906–1991) who, like her brother, was born in Khorkom, a village in the Armenian and Kurdish province of Van on the eastern border of the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey), where they spent their early childhoods. Between April 1915, when they were forcibly displaced from their home in Van City, and February 26, 1920, when they arrived at Ellis Island on the Italian ship, the S.S. Presidente Wilson, the two siblings together fled and survived the Armenian genocide.

Between September 1935 and November 1936, when they moved to Chicago, Vartoosh, her husband Moorad Mooradian (1896–1963), and their young son Karlen (1935–1990) lived with Gorky in his studio at 36 Union Square. During their stay, Gorky made a pencil drawing of Vartoosh which he mentions in a letter to her from late 1937: "from that [drawing] I have made four very magnificent oil paintings," of which this is one (see also P111 and P113; the fourth is unidentified).1 As Gorky never succeeded in delivering these paintings to Vartoosh, this portrait was given to her by the Estate of Arshile Gorky after the artist's death.

Although the title is identified as originating with the artist in Jim M. Jordan's catalogue raisonné, there is no known, extant confirmatory documentation and we have therefore designated it as posthumous.2

1. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, [September or December] 18, 1937, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York. Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, [Month unknown] 18, 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), 154, 156.

2. 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), 241.

Portraits (sitter identified): Vartoosh Adoian Mooradian (artist's sister)

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