Reverse, on a section of the original stretcher bar affixed to the existing center stretcher bar: TOP 32 Arshile Gorky 36 Union Square 1933–34 / 36
Commentary
Gorky spent several years working on Organization—from 1933 to 1936—and two photographs taken around 1935 captured the composition's evolving states. The first shows Gorky and Willem de Kooning (1904–1997), both nicely dressed, posing next to the painting. At that time, the composition was busier than it is today because of the network of heavy black bars, predominantly located in the lower half of the composition. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was an important inspiration for Organization and Gorky owned a reproduction of his study for a welded iron sculpture which was to be fabricated by Julio González (1876–1942).1 The iron rods rendered in Picasso's drawing are capped at each end by balls just as Gorky's black bars are in this earlier state of his composition. The study also includes the outline of an ovoid form that, because of the two round circles, recalls the African masks that had first inspired him around 1907. Gorky employs the same ovoid form, outlined in black and with only one "eye," in the upper left quadrant of his painting.
The second photograph shows Gorky alone, working on Organization in his studio. While the central, black amorphic form is unchanged, the painting no longer includes the bars at lower right which have now been replaced by a dark, solid form. Similarly, the bars that appeared at left in the first photo were removed and replaced with the planar forms that make up the painting today. One bar, capped by a ball at lower left was simplified, becoming a black line that runs off the edge of the composition. The ovoid has been removed as well, replaced by two, much smaller ovoids in heavy black paint and placed near the top edge of the canvas.
Herman Rose recalled visiting Gorky's studio while he was working on the painting:
"I remember a painting of about four feet by five on his easel. It was like a still life composition, but it had a clear, Hans Arp-like shape in the center. Drawings of the same composition, mostly in black Indian ink, some of them very finished, were pinned to the walls. At one point Gorky took a palette knife and cut through the skin of the red shape in the middle of the painting, and prized it off, leaving a hollow in the surface of the picture."2
1. Picasso's study was published in Cahiers d'Art, nos. 8–9 (Paris, 1929): 352.
2. Herman Rose, interview with Matthew Spender dated February 12, 1995, p. 2, Matthew Spender Papers, AGF Archives.