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Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Paul Hester
D0177
[Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia: Enigma]
c. 1931–32
Ink on paper
28 1/2 x 38 in. (72.4 x 96.5 cm)
Recto not inscribed
Verso not seen
Private collection
Provenance
The artist
Sidney Janowitz [later Janis], New York (1932)
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, by transfer (by 1975)
[M. Knoedler & Co. Inc., New York (c. 1980)]
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (by 1981) . . .
Private collection (after 1994) . . .
Jason McCoy Inc., New York (by 2001)
Private collection (October 2001)
Exhibitions
1975a New York
M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Arshile Gorky: Works on Paper, January 9–February 1, 1975, no. 4, as "Study for "Nighttime, Enigma, Nostalgia"".
1975–76 Austin
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), ill. in b/w, p. 14; p. 104, as "Study for Enigma," dated c. 1932. 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.
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 42, ill. in b/w, p. 96, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia". Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
1989–90 Madrid
Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, October 17–December 23, 1989, no. 54, ill. in color, p. 135, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia". Traveled to: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 19–March 25, 1990.
1992–93b New York
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 20th Century Masters on Paper, December 10, 1992–January 23, 1993, ill. in b/w, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia".
1994c New York possibly
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 20th Century Masters on Paper, May 4–June 4, 1994, [not in brochure].
2003–04b New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings, November 20, 2003–February 15, 2004, no. 43, ill. in color, p. 99; p. 243, as "Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia". Traveled to: Menil Collection, Houston, March 5–May 9, 2004.
2009–10 Philadelphia
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 48, ill. in color, p. 204; p. 387, as "Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia". 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).
Literature
Rand 1981
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun & Co. Publishers Inc., and London: George Prior Associated Publishers Ltd., 1981. Monograph, fig. 4–1, ill. in b/w, p. 54, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia".
Waldman 1981
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. 28, as "Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Karp 1982
Karp, Diane. "Arshile Gorky: The Language of Art." Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1982, fig. 58, ill. in b/w, p. 226, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia".
Seitz 1983
Seitz, William C. Abstract Expressionist Painting in America. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press for the National Gallery of Art, 1983, fig. 55, ill. in b/w, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia".
Rand 1991
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Monograph, fig. 4–1, ill. in b/w, p. 61, as "Study for Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia".
Spender 2010
Spender, Matthew. Una storia armena Vita di Arshile Gorky. Florence: Barbès Editore, 2010, ill. in b/w, p. 105; p. 427, as "Nighttime Enigma and Nostalgia".
Notes

Commentary

In 1929, Gorky began a series of abstract works which is now referred to as "Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia." While he continued working on this until 1936, it was between 1931 and 1934 that he was most dedicated to developing the composition. Ultimately, he produced nearly one hundred drawings and three related paintings. The body of work can be divided into subsets, such as the posthumously titled "Fish and Head," "Column with Objects" and "Écorché." Gorky titled two of these himself: Objects and Enigma. The latter's source, a painting (P120), is related to six known drawings, including this work.1

The drawing's first owner was Sidney Janis (1896–1989), who Gorky met in 1929 before he had changed his name from Janowitz. Prior to opening his art gallery, Janis ran a successful shirt company and, in the late 1920s, started collecting art, particularly works by the School of Paris. Gorky served as his unofficial art advisor and the two traveled to the Fifty-seventh Street galleries in Janis's red convertible.2 In 1933, he acquired Pablo Picasso's (1881–1973) painting Painter and Model, 1928 (Museum of Modern Art, New York), enabling Gorky to study the painting closely in the Janis home.3 On Gorky's unquenchable fascination with the Picasso, Janis later recounted, "Gorky was so crazy about that picture it became an albatross around his neck. He kept painting it over and over, unconsciously, for five years. He'd come up [to our apartment] and look at it, then just walk away in dejection. 'What can anybody do after that?' he'd say."4 

Shortly after it opened in New York in 1948, the Sidney Janis Gallery represented the Estate of Arshile Gorky. 

1. See also: D0173, D0174a, D0175a, D0176, and D1638.

2. Hayden Herrera, Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 211.

3. Ibid, 186.

4. John Brooks, "Why Fight It?," The New Yorker (November 12, 1960): 98–9.

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