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P148
Xhorkom
1936
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 in. (91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Front, lower right: A. Gorky 36
Reverse, on canvas: Gorky / 1930–36
Reverse, on canvas: Gorky / 1930–36
Provenance
Exhibitions
San Francisco Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky, August 9–24, 1941, as Xhorkom, dated 1935.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky Memorial Exhibition, January 5–February 18, 1951, no. 19, p. 46, as Xhorkom. Traveled to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, March 4–April 22, 1951; San Francisco Museum of Art, California, May 9–July 9, 1951.
Poindexter Gallery, New York, The 30s: Painting in New York, June 4, 1957–[closing date unknown], ill. in b/w, p. 6, as Xhorkom.
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 33 Paintings by Arshile Gorky, December 2–28, 1957. (Exhibition catalogue: Sidney Janis Gallery 1957), no. 4, ill. in b/w, as "Image in Xhorkom".
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, American Painting Since World War II, June 8–July 11, 1971, ill. in color, cover, as "Composition Xhorkom Summer," Martha Jackson Gallery Collection, New York.
Seibu Department Store, Tokyo, Martha Jackson Gallery Collection, September 17–29, 1971, no. 41, ill. in color, as "Image in Xhorkom Summer".
University of Maryland Art Gallery, Department of Art, University of Maryland, College Park, The Private Collection of Martha Jackson, June 22–September 30, 1973, no. 29, ill. in b/w, p. 21, as "Image in Xhorkom Summer". Traveled to: Finch College Museum of Art, New York, October 16–November 25, 1973; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, January 6–February 10, 1974.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments, September 19–November 29, 1987, no. 3, ill. in color, p. 170, as "Image in Xhorkom Summer".
Associated American Artists, New York, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1953 to 1979: Including Appel, Fontana, Francis, Gorky, Gottlieb, Hofmann, Jenkins, Jensen, Mitchell, Nevelson, Tapies, September 14–October 22, 1994, ill. in color, p. 6, as "Xhorkom–Summer".
Aichi Prefectural Museum, Nagoya, Japan, Abstract Expressionism, July 26–September 16, 1996, no. 16, ill. in color, p. 65, as "Xhorkom–Summer". Traveled to: Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo, June 6–July 14, 1996; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan, September 29–November 17, 1996.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Founders and Heirs of the New York School, January 25–March 16, 1997, no. 14, ill. in color, p. 64, as "Xhorkom–Summer". Traveled to: Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai, Japan, April 5–May 25, 1997; Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki, Japan, June 28–August 3, 1997.
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927–1942, September 21–December 31, 2012, p. 168; pl. 38, ill. in color, p. 96, as "Xhorkom–Summer". Traveled to: Neuberger Museum, Purchase College, State University of New York, January 29–April 28, 2012; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, June 9–August 19, 2012.
Ca'Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice, Italy, Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948, May 8–September 22, 2019, ill. in color, p. 101, as "Image in Khorkom".
Literature
Coates, Robert. "The Art Galleries." The New Yorker 26, no. 48 (January 20, 1951), discussed p. 62, as Xhorkom.
Schwabacher, Ethel. Arshile Gorky. New York: The Macmillan Company for the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1957. Monograph, fig. 19, ill. in b/w, p. 57, as "Image in Xhorkom".
Paintings by Arshile Gorky from 1929 to 1948. New York: Sidney Janis Gallery, 1962. Exhibition catalogue (1962b New York), no. 31, ill. in b/w (in situ), as "View, Gorky Exhibition, December 1957".
Rosenberg, Harold. Arshile Gorky: The Man, the Time, the Idea. New York: Horizon Press, 1962. Monograph, ill. in b/w, p. 51, as Xhorkom.
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 66. ill. in b/w, p. 90, as "Image in Xhorkom Summer".
Kaplan, Ruth Jillya. "Art Museum's Exhibit Like a Bride With a Blush." Evening Journal (Wilmington, DE), June 11, 1971, discussed, p. 29, as "Composition Xhorkom Summer," dated 1936.
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. London and Montclair, N.J.: George Prior and Allanheld & Schram, 1980, 1981. Monograph, fig. 5–6, ill. in b/w, p. 79, as "Image in Xhorkom, Summer".
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. 43, as "Image in Xhorkom Summer".
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. 69–73, as "Image in Khorkom".
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. 148, ill. in b/w, pp. 289–90, as "Image in Khorkom".
Seitz, William C. Abstract Expressionist Painting in America. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press for the National Gallery of Art, 1983, fig. 60, ill. in color, as "Image in Xhorkom, Summer".
Kuspit, Donald. "Arshile Gorky: Images in Support of the Invented Self." In Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987. Exhibition catalogue, discussed p. 60, as "Image in Xhorkom Summer".
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Monograph, fig. 5–6, ill. in b/w, p. 86, as "Image in Xhorkom, Summer".
Balakian, Peter. "Arshile Gorky and the Armenian Genocide." Art in America (New York) 84 (February 1996), ill. in color, p. 63, as "Image in Xhorkom".
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 32, ill. in color, as "Image in Khorkom".
Beredjiklian, Alexandre. Arshile Gorky: sept thèmes majeurs. Suresnes, France: Alphamédian & Johanet; Lisbon: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 2007. Monograph, discussed p. 33, as "Khorkom".
Notes
The inscription on the reverse is known from the Arshile Gorky Research Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art Archives, New York.
On loan: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, October 1, 1974–January 30, 1978.
Commentary
For two weeks in August 1941, the San Francisco Museum of Art was the venue for Gorky's first solo museum show. All but three of the twenty-one works on view were oil paintings and most came directly from the artist's studio. Two paintings were similarly titled and related compositionally. The painting, Xhorkom, is the slightly larger and more colorful of the two, while its mate, which is believed to be the earlier work, is titled Image in Khorkom (P147).
Khorkom (also spelled Khorgom, now known as Dilkaya, Turkey) is the name of the village in the Ottoman Empire where Gorky was born. Since Gorky maintained throughout his life that he was born in Russia, the spelling variation for this painting may be a nod to the Russian spelling of the village: Хорком.
In 1966, the Estate of Arshile Gorky exchanged the painting with Martha Jackson Gallery for Enigma (P120).
Gorky often backdated his paintings, which he seems to have done when he dated this painting 1935 for his show at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1941. He also frequently reworked the same canvas over many years. Here, the date inscribed on the reverse of the original canvas, "1930–1936," could refer to an earlier iteration of the painting. Stylistically, it is more likely that the painting was completed in 1936, as the date inscribed on the front suggests. Curiously, Ethel Schwabacher, Gorky's former student who went on to write the artist's first monograph, told Whitney curator Lloyd Goodrich, while he was preparing the artist's Memorial exhibition in 1951, the very specific information that Gorky completed the painting in January 1938.
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