Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Peter Schälchli
P234
(Flowers)
c. 1938–42
Oil on canvas
22 x 18 1/4 in. (55.9 x 46.4 cm)
Front not inscribed
Reverse not seen
Private collection
Exhibitions
1965 AC–Brussels and Rotterdam
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings / Arshile Gorky: Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1965, no. 45, as "Vaas met bloemen / Vase of flowers," dated c. 1938. 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).
1965 AC–London
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Tate Gallery, Arshile Gorky: Paintings and Drawings, April 2–May 2, 1965, no. 37, as "Vase of Flowers," dated c. 1938.
1989–90 Madrid
Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, October 17–December 23, 1989, no. 25, ill. in color, p. 89, as "Flowers". Traveled to: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 19–March 25, 1990.
Literature
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. 77, as "Flowers".
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. 234, ill. in b/w, pp. 379–80, as "Flowers".
Notes

Commentary

According to the artist's widow Agnes "Mougouch" (1921–2013), Gorky "spent one winter, 1942, doing many little bouquets."1 Mougouch recalled that the artist "gave a different color scheme to this painting every night for weeks [and] was inspired by the flowers of Manet, Zurburan, and Chardin's painting in Edinburgh" [presumably Siméon Chardin's (1699–1779), A Vase of Flowers, early 1760s (National Galleries Scotland)].2 

1. Agnes Gorky Fielding, as quoted in Jim M. Jordan, "Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings," in Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater, The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue (New York and London: New York University Press, 1982), 380.

2. Ibid.

Related Work

Theme: Still Life

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