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Photo: © Courtesy the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
P173
Painting
1936–37
Oil on canvas
37 15/16 x 47 7/8 in. (96.4 x 121.6 cm)
Front, upper right: A. GORKY / [paraph]
Reverse, on canvas: ↑ / TOP / A. Gorky / 1936–37
Reverse, on canvas: ↑ / TOP / A. Gorky / 1936–37
Exhibitions
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, November 10–December 12, 1937, no. 17, as Painting.
Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, New York, Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, December 20, 1937–January 26, 1938.
Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris (organized in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art, New York), Trois siècles d'art aux États-Unis, May 24–July 31, 1938, no. 65, ill. in b/w, fig. 53, as "Composition (Painting)".
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Exhibition Featuring Works from the Permanent Collection, May 1940.
Whitney Museum of American Art (organizer), New York, 60 American Paintings from the Whitney Museum, 1940–41, as Painting, [South Hadley: no 17, as Painting]. Traveled to: Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, New York, November 1–December 2, 1940; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, January 5–February 9, 1941 (as American Paintings from the Whitney Museum Collection); Detroit Institute of Arts, February 21–March 23, 1941 (as Exhibition of Paintings From the Whitney Museum of American Art); Dwight Art Memorial Building, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, May 17–June 9, 1941 (as Fifty Paintings from the Whitney Museum of American Art).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Contemporary Painting in the United States: A Special Exhibition, April 19–27, 1941, as Painting, [not in brochure].
Museum of Modern Art, New York (organizer), La Pintura Contemporánea Norteamericana, 1941, ill. in b/w, p. 53, as Painting. Traveled to: Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, June 10–July 4, 1941; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, September 16–October 5, 1941; Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, November 15–December 7, 1941.
Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, Exhibition of Russian Paintings, February 16–March 12, 1945, no. 31, as Painting.
Art Gallery of Toronto, Contemporary American Paintings & Sculpture (Whitney Museum Collection), October 18–November 22, 1946, as Painting.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (organizer), Centennial Art Museum, Utah Exposition Grounds, Salt Lake City, Utah Centennial Exhibition: 100 Years of American Painting, July 5–31, 1947.
Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, From the Armory Show to the Present, March 9–31, 1950, no. 14, ill. in b/w, as Painting.
The Art Gallery, University of Miami, Contemporary American Paintings, April 18–May 3, 1950, no. 24, as Painting.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky Memorial Exhibition, January 5–February 18, 1951, no. 18, ill. in b/w, p. 21; p. 46, as Painting. Traveled to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, March 4–April 22, 1951; San Francisco Museum of Art, California, May 9–July 9, 1951.
Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, New York, Abstract Painting in America: A Loan Exhibition, October 14–November 8, 1953, no. 12, ill. in b/w, cover, as "Composition".
XXXI Biennale di Venezia: Internazionale d'Arte, U.S. Pavilion, Venice, Italy, Arshile Gorky, June 16–October 7, 1962, no. 5, p. 113, as "Pittura".
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, December 19, 1962–February 12, 1963. (Exhibition catalogue: Seitz 1962), no. 36, ill. in b/w, p. 25; p. 53, as Painting. Traveled to: Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., March 12–April 14, 1963.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., The New Tradition: Modern Americans Before 1940, April 27–June 2, 1963, no. 43, p. 59, as Painting.
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings / Arshile Gorky: Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1965, no. 43, ill. in b/w, as "Schilderij / Painting". Traveled to: Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, May 22–June 27, 1965; Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 24–September 5, 1965 (Museum Boymans van Beuingen 1965).
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Tate Gallery, Arshile Gorky: Paintings and Drawings, April 2–May 2, 1965, no. 33, ill. in b/w, as Painting.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The 1930's: Painting and Sculpture in America, October 15–December 1, 1968, no. 39, ill. in color, as Painting.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Twentieth Century: 35 American Artists, An Exhibition of Works from the Permanent Collection, July 1–September 29, 1974, as Painting.
University Art Museum, University of Texas at Austin, Arshile Gorky: Drawings to Paintings, October 12–November 23, 1975. (Exhibition catalogue: University of Texas at Austin 1975), p. 103, as Painting. Traveled to: San Francisco Museum of Art, December 4, 1975–January 12, 1976; Neuberger Museum, Purchase College, State University of New York, February 10–March 14, 1976; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York, April 4–May 9, 1976.
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. 36, as Painting. 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. 102, ill. in b/w, p. 143, as Painting. Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
Whitney Museum of American Art (organizer), New York, Twentieth-Century American Art: Highlights of the Permanent Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, ill. in b/w, p. 24, as Painting. Traveled to: Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont, Burlington, March 25–May 22, 1988; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, June 12–August 7, 1988; Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, August 26–October 2, 1988.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Art in Place: Fifteen Years of Acquisitions, July 7–October 29, 1989, ill. in b/w, p. 16, as Painting (not exhibited).
Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Center, New York, American Masters: Six Artists from the Permanent Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, January 10–March 18, 1992, ill. in color, as Painting. Traveled to: Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Stamford, Connecticut, April 17–June 17, 1992.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 71, ill. in color, p. 227; p. 388, as Painting. Traveled to: Tate Modern, London, February 10–May 3, 2010 (Gale 2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, June 6–September 20, 2010 (Gale 2010).
Musée National Picasso-Paris, Jackson Pollock: Les Premières Années (1934–1947), October 15, 2024–January 19, 2025.
Literature
"Recent Acquisitions by the Whitney Museum of American Art." News from Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) 7 (1937), discussed, as Painting.
Whitney Museum of American Art. "Supplement to the Catalogue of the Collection July, 1937–June, 1942." In Whitney Museum of American Art: History, Purpose and Activities with a Complete List of Works in its Permanent Collection to June, 1937. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1937, p. 47, as Painting.
Jewell, Edward Alden. "American Artists Display Canvases." New York Times, November 11, 1937, discussed p. 23, as "Arshile Gorky's abstract pattern".
Jewell, Edward Alden. "French Paintings Put on View Here." New York Times, December 11, 1937, discussed p. 17, as Painting.
Strickland, Miriam. "Museum Acquisitions." Parnassus (New York) 10 (March 1938), discussed p. 18, as Painting.
Sweeney, James Johnson. "L'Art Contemporain aux Etats Unis." Cahiers d'Art (Paris) 13 (1938), ill. in b/w, p. 63, as Painting.
Jewell, Edward Alden. "Whitney Museum Shows Collection." New York Times, May 8, 1940, discussed, p. 21, as Painting.
Coates, Robert M. "The Art Galleries: Moderns—Past and Present." The New Yorker 26, no. 48 (January 20, 1951), discussed p. 62, as Painting.
Goodrich, Lloyd. "Eight Works by Arshile Gorky with Notes by Lloyd Goodrich." Magazine of Art (Washington, D.C.) 44 (February 1951), ill. in b/w, p. 59, as Painting.
Loftus, John. "Arshile Gorky: A Monograph." M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, New York, 1952, pl. XVI, ill. in b/w, as Painting.
"Abstracts on View at Museum." The Post Standard (Syracuse, NY), October 25, 1953, as "Composition".
Geist, Sidney. "Prelude: The 1930's." Arts Magazine (New York) 30 (September 1956), ill. in b/w, p. 54, as Painting.
Schwabacher, Ethel. Arshile Gorky. Introduction by Meyer Schapiro. New York: The Macmillan Company for the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1957. Monograph, fig. 20, ill. in b/w, p. 58, as Painting.
Whitney Museum of American Art. Whitney Museum of American Art: Catalogue of the Collection. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1960, discussed p. 278, as Painting.
Boatto, Alberto. "L'itinerario di Gorky." Arte Oggi (Rome) 14 (June–December 1962), discussed p. 12, as "Pittura".
Geist, Sidney. "Gorky/Rosenberg: Two Reviews." Anita Ventura and Sidney Geist, eds. Review of Arshile Gorky: The Man, the Time, the Idea, by Harold Rosenberg. Scrap (New York) 8 (June 14, 1962), ill. in b/w, p. 3, as Painting.
Rosenberg, Harold. Arshile Gorky: The Man, the Time, the Idea. New York: Horizon Press, 1962. Monograph, ill. in b/w, p. 63, as Painting.
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 69, ill. in b/w, p. 93, as Painting.
Rosenberg, Harold. The De-definition of Art: Action Art to Pop to Earthworks. New York: Horizon Press, 1972, discussed p. 186.
Larson, Philip. "De Kooning's Drawings." In De Kooning: drawings/sculptures, by Philip Larson and Peter Schjeldahl. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1974. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 8, ill. in b/w (upside down), as Painting.
Frankenstein, Alfred. "The Way Was Long for The Immigrant Gorky." San Francisco Examiner, December 21, 1975, ill. in b/w, p. 29, as "Composition".
Reiff, Robert. "Arshile Gorky's Object Matter." Arts Magazine (New York) 50, no. 7 (March 1976), discussed p. 91, as Painting.
Jordan, Jim M. "Gorky at the Guggenheim." Art Journal (New York) 41, no. 3 (Fall 1981), discussed p. 262, as Painting.
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: The Language of Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1982, fig. 68, ill. in b/w (repr. 90 degrees counterclockwise), p. 236, as Painting.
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, 71, 73, as Painting.
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. 173, ill. in b/w, pp. 317–18, as Painting.
Lader, Melvin P. Arshile Gorky. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Monograph, fig. 43, ill. in color, p. 50, as Painting.
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 20, ill. in color, as Painting.
Beredjiklian, Alexandre. Arshile Gorky: sept thèmes majeurs. Suresnes, France: Alphamédian & Johanet; Lisbon: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 2007. Monograph, discussed pp. 35, 49, as "Peinture".
Matttison, Robert S. Arshile Gorky: Works and Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafica, 2009. Monograph, ill. in color, p. 53, as Painting.
Gale, Matthew. Arshile Gorky: Enigma and Nostalgia. London: Tate Publishing, 2010. Exhibition catalogue (2009–10 Philadelphia), no. 3, ill. in color, p. 17, as Painting.
Notes
The canvas was relined. The inscription on the reverse is known from the records of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Commentary
The painting's overall composition is closely referenced in one known drawing (see D0216).
The painting was the first to enter a museum collection when the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased it—for $650—at the close of their Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting in December 1937, in which it was shown as Painting. Shortly after the sale went through, on December 13, 1937, Gorky telegrammed his younger sister Vartoosh Mooradian (née Adoian; 1906–1991), sharing the momentous news (see additional material).
In 1938, the Museum of Modern Art curator and critic James Johnson Sweeney (1900–1986) included the painting in his article "L'Art Contemporain aux Etats Unis," which appeared in the French journal Cahiers d'Art, a publication that Gorky had long admired and to which he frequently turned for inspiration.1 In a letter dated April 18, 1938, also to Vartoosh, Gorky proclaimed, "the Paris newspapers liked all my paintings a lot and had written that Arshil Gorgi [sic] is the most original-original painter in America. Then the painting was published in the best magazine on art in Paris and in the world, called Cahiers d'Art. You know, [that magazine] I always buy to see the works of Picasso."2
1. James Johnson Sweeney, "L'Art Contemporain aux Etats Unis," Cahiers d'Art 13 (1938): 44–68, ill. 63.
2. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, April 18, 1938, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York. Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, April 18, 1938, 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), 159–60, 162.
After works by other artists: Pablo Picasso
Additional Material
Related Correspondence: Telegram from Gorky to his sister Vartoosh and her husband Moorad, December 13, 1937: "DARLINGS– WHITNEY MUSEUM PURCHASED ONE OF MY PAINTINGS FOR / 650 DOLLARS WILL WRITE VERY SOON LOVE= / GOUKY." Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York.Click image to view.
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