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P279
One Year the Milkweed
1944
Oil on canvas
37 1/16 x 46 15/16 in. (94.2 x 119.3 cm)
Front, lower left: A. Gorky / 44
Reverse, in pencil, center stretcher bar, top: 37 x 47 [line] / Arshile Gorky / 1944 [sideways]; center: One YeaR THE MILKWEED [sideways]
Reverse, in pencil, center stretcher bar, top: 37 x 47 [line] / Arshile Gorky / 1944 [sideways]; center: One YeaR THE MILKWEED [sideways]
Provenance
Exhibitions
Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, March 6–31, 1945. (Exhibition brochure: Breton 1945b), no. 2, as One Year the Milkweed.
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 33 Paintings by Arshile Gorky, December 2–28, 1957. (Exhibition catalogue: Sidney Janis Gallery 1957), no. 17, ill. in b/w, as One Year the Milkweed.
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Department of Circulating Exhibitions (organizer), U.S. Government Art Projects: Some Distinguished Alumni, 1963–64, no. 8, as One Year the Milkweed. Traveled to: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio, February 11–March 4, 1963; Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, March 19–April 9, 1963; University of Nevada, Reno, April 24–May 19, 1963; Tacoma Art League, Washington, May 30–June 20, 1963; Washington Gallery of Modern Art, D.C., July 8–September 1, 1963; State University of New York, Oswego, September 18–October 9, 1963; Cranbrook Academy of Art Galleries, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, October 21–November 11, 1963; Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, November 22–December 13, 1963; Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, January 2–23, 1964; Pomona College, Claremont, California, February 7–28, 1964.
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings / Arshile Gorky: Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1965, no. 67, as "In dat jaar werd het kroontjeskruid gemaaid / One year the milkweed". 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. 56, ill. in b/w, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Museum of Modern Art, New York, International Council (organizer), Two Decades of American Painting, 1966–67, as "One Year The Milkweed," [Japan: unnumbered checklist, p. 66]. Traveled to: National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, October 15–November 27, 1966; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, December 10, 1966–January 22, 1967; Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, March 28–April 15, 1967; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, June 6–July 9, 1967; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, July 17–August 13, 1967.
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Department of Circulating Exhibitions (organizer), Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage, 1968. (Exhibition catalogue: Rubin 1967), no. 138, ill. in b/w, fig. 269, p. 174, as "One Year The Milkweed". Traveled to: Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 27–June 9, 1968; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, July 16–September 8, 1968; Art Institute of Chicago, October 19–December 8, 1968.
M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky, de Kooning, Newman, June 26–September 20, 1969, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Haus der Kunst, Munich, Der Surrealismus 1922–1942 / Le Surrealisme, 1922–1942, March 11–May 7, 1972, as "One Year The Milkweed," [Munich: no. 188, ill. in b/w; Paris: no. 183, ill. in b/w]. Traveled to: Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, May 26–July 23, 1972.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (organized in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years, March 30–May 14, 1978. (Exhibition catalogue: Hobbs and Levin 1978); (Exhibition catalogue: Levin 1978a); (Exhibition catalogue: Levin 1978b), as One Year the Milkweed. Traveled to: Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, June 17–July 12, 1978; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 5–December 3, 1978.
Xavier Fourcade Inc, New York, Arshile Gorky: Important Paintings and Drawings, April 3–28, 1979, ill. in color, and ill. in color, on cover, as One Year the Milkweed.
Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, La Pintura de Los Estados Unidos de Museos de la Ciudad de Washington, November 18, 1980–January 4, 1981, no. 68, ill. in color, p. 177, as "Un Año, el Algodoncillo".
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 165, ill. in color, p. 193, as One Year the Milkweed. 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, New York, Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art, March 1–May 20, 1984. (Exhibition catalogue: Foshay 1984), fig. 66, ill. in color, p. 87, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments, September 19–November 29, 1987, no. 8, ill. in color, p. 174, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Arshile Gorky, 1904–1948, October 17–December 23, 1989, no. 34, ill. in color, p. 105, as "One Year The Milkweed". Traveled to: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 19–March 25, 1990.
Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, André Breton: la beauté convulsive, April 25–August 26, 1991, ill. in color, p. 386; p. 487, as "One Year The Milkweed". Traveled to: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, October 2–December 2, 1991 (as Breton y el surrealismo).
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, American Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1913–1993, May 8–July 25, 1993, no. 80, ill. in color, as "One Year The Milkweed". Traveled to: Royal Academy of Arts and Saatchi Gallery, London, September 16–December 12, 1993.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (organizers), Arshile Gorky: The Breakthrough Years, 1995–96, no. 8, ill. in color, p. 105. Traveled to: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., May 7–September 17, 1995; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, October 13–December 31, 1995; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, January 13–March 17, 1996.
National Academy of Design, New York, Surrealism USA, February 17–May 8, 2005, no. 85, ill. in color, as "One Year The Milkweed". Traveled to: Phoenix Art Museum, June 5–September 25, 2005.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 120, ill. in color, p. 281; p. 390, as One Year the Milkweed. 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).
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, Collection Conversations: Arshile Gorky: Between Worlds, July 1–October 18, 2015, as One Year the Milkweed.
Ca'Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice, Italy, Arshile Gorky: 1904–1948, May 8–September 22, 2019, ill. in color, p. 115, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Literature
Ashton, Dore. "Lettre de New York." Arts & Architecture (Los Angeles) 75, no. 1 (January 1958), ill. in b/w, p. 6, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Jouffroy, Alain. "Arshile Gorky et les secrets de la nuit." Cahiers du musée de poche (Paris) 2 (June 1959), ill. in b/w, p. 79, as "Un an de latex".
Reiff, Robert F. "A Stylistic Analysis of Arshile Gorky's Art from 1943–1948." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, 1961, fig. 60a, ill. in b/w, p. 338, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Rubin, William. "Arshile Gorky, Surrealism, and the New American Painting." Art International (Paris) 7, no. 2 (February 25, 1963), ill. in b/w, p. 34, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 102, ill. in b/w, p. 126, as One Year the Milkweed.
Rubin, William. Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1967. Exhibition catalogue (1968 CE–MoMA), no. 138, ill. in b/w, p. 174, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Rubin, William S. Dada and Surrealist Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1968, pl. LIX, ill. in color, p. 406, as One Year the Milkweed.
Sandler, Irving H. The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970, fig. 2–5, ill. in b/w, p. 38, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Jordan, Jim. M. "Arshile Gorky at Crooked Run Farm." Arts Magazine (New York) 50, no. 7 (March 1976), discussed p. 100, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Levin, Gail. "Arshile Gorky (1904–1948)." In Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1978. Exhibition catalogue (1978 Ithaca), fig. 63, ill. in b/w, p. 72, as One Year the Milkweed.
Gibson, Eric. "Arshile Gorky." Art International (Paris) 23 (Summer 1979), ill. in b/w, p. 77, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Schmidt, Katharina, ed. 2 Jarhzehnte amerikanische Malerei 1920–1940. Düsseldorf: Städtische Kunsthalle, 1979. Exhibition catalogue (1979 Düsseldorf), ill. in color, p. 129, as One Year the Milkweed.
Schmidt, Katharina, ed. Peinture américaine, 1920–1940 / Amerikaanse schilderkunst, 1920–1940. Brussels: Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1979. Exhibition catalogue (1979 Brussels), ill. in color, p. 120, as One Year the Milkweed.
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1980, ill. in b/w, p. 166, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Frank, Elizabeth. "How Arshile Gorky Finally Became Himself." Artnews (New York) 80 (September 1981), ill. in color, p. 169, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Freedman, Adele. "An Artist's Descent into Death: Gorky's Early Years Were Chaotic, His Later Ones Were Even Worse." The Globe and Mail (Toronto), June 9, 1981, discussed p. 15, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Jordan, Jim M. "Gorky at the Guggenheim." Art Journal (New York) 41, no. 3 (Fall 1981), discussed p. 263, as One Year the Milkweed.
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. 60, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Jordan, Jim M., and Robert Goldwater. The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue. New York and London: New York University Press, 1982, ill. in color, cover; pl. 6, ill. in color, p. 110, as "One Year The Milkweed".
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. 85, as One Year the Milkweed.
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. 279, ill. in b/w, pp. 430–31, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Foshay, Ella M. "Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art." In Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art, Sheila Schwartz, ed. New York and Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Random House of Canada, 1984. Exhibition catalogue (1984a New York), fig. 66, ill. in color, p. 87, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Lader, Melvin P. Arshile Gorky. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Monograph, fig. 69, ill. in color, p. 75, as "One Year The Milkweed".
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. 61, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art (Revised and Enlarged Edition). New York: Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1988, discussed p. 188, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Allen, William. "Arshile Gorky." Art Monthly (London), no. 134 (March 1990), discussed, pp. 19–20, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Cardinal, Roger. "Resurrecting the homeland." The Times Literary Supplement (London), February 9–15, 1990, discussed, p. 147, as One Year the Milkweed.
Frankel, Claire. "Gorky: Tragic Lyricism." International Herald Tribune (Paris), March 10–11, 1990, discussed, p. 7, as One Year the Milkweed.
Anfam, David. Abstract Expressionism. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1990, discussed p. 104, as One Year the Milkweed.
Hopkins, David. "André Breton. Paris, Musée nationale d'art moderne." The Burlington Magazine (London) 133 (July 1991), discussed p. 480, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Polcari, Stephen. Abstract Expressionism and the Modern Experience. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991, discussed p. 278, as "One Year The Milkweed".
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1992, ill. in b/w, p. 189, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Sawin, Martica. Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 1995, discussed p. 369, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Sylvester, David. "The Birth of 'Woman I.'" The Burlington Magazine (London) 137, no. 1105 (April 1995), fig. 7, ill. in b/w, p. 227; discussed, pp. 225–26, as "One year the milkweed".
Balakian, Peter. "Arshile Gorky and the Armenian Genocide." Art in America (New York) 84 (February 1996), discussed p. 59, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Matossian, Nouritza. Black Angel: The Life of Arshile Gorky. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998, pl. 9, ill. in color, as One Year the Milkweed.
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 156, ill. in color, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Celant, Germano, and Lisa Dennison, eds. New York, New York: Fifty Years of Art, Architecture, Cinema, Performance, Photography and Video. Milan: Skira Editore, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Monaco), no. 11, ill. color, p. 77; p. 521, as One Year the Milkweed.
Matttison, Robert S. Arshile Gorky: Works and Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafica, 2009. Monograph, ill. in color, p. 79, as One Year the Milkweed.
Theriault, Kim S. Rethinking Arshile Gorky. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. Monograph, fig. 44, ill. in b/w, p. 147; ill. in b/w (detail), p. 134, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Alberro, Alexander. "The Apprenticeship of Arshile Gorky: On Arshile Gorky at the Philadelphia Museum of Art." Texte zur Kunst (Cologne) 77 (March 2010), discussed pp. 149, 212, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Campbell-Johnston, Rachel. "An Old World newly minted." The Times (London), February 9, 2010, ill. in color, p. 14, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Gale, Matthew. Arshile Gorky: Enigma and Nostalgia. London: Tate Publishing, 2010. Exhibition catalogue (2009–10 Philadelphia), no. 73, ill. in color, p. 73, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Harvey, Doug. "Gorky's Debt: The Genealogy of an Action Pioneer." Los Angeles Weekly, July 8, 2010, discussed, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Weston, Neville. "Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective." Craft Arts International (Neutral Bay Junction, N.S.W.) 79 (2010), ill. in color, p. 84, as "One Year The Milkweed".
Carrier, David. "Arshile Gorky 1904-1948." The Brooklyn Rail (NY) (July–August 2019), ill. in color, as "One year the milkweed".
Wullschläger, Jackie. "Abstraction in Venice — Jean Arp, Arshile Gorky and Helen Frankenthaler." The Financial Times (London), May 18, 2019 (accessed online), discussed, as One Year the Milkweed.
Subelytė, Gražina. "Patron of Abstract Expressionism: Peggy Guggenheim and Jackson Pollock." In The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945. Munich, London, and New York: Prestel, 2022. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 3, ill. in color, p. 31, as One Year the Milkweed.
Notes
The painting is inscribed at lower left in black paint with flourishes in gray paint.
Reverse, in pencil, upper stretcher bar [not in artist's hand]: TOP [circled]
The inscription on the center stretcher bar and marking on the upper stretcher bar are known from a photograph provided by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Commentary
The painting is one of the nine canvases that were included in Gorky's debut solo show at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. Its title was selected with the help of André Breton (1896–1966) who visited Gorky in Roxbury, Connecticut, on New Year's Eve 1945, and multiple times in his studio at 36 Union Square, before the exhibition opened in March 1945.
Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky (1921–2013) later explained the resulting method's genesis in a collaborative play of associations: "Breton told Gorky to bring out his work and to talk about each one as it came up, which Gorky did, very freely and easily. Breton chose an appropriate fragment from Gorky's words. After a while, Gorky got the hang of it, and could cho[o]se titles by himself. . . . For later shows this [collaboration] was not necessary—[Gorky] found a title easily—but for many years before 1945 he hadn't thought in terms of titles as no painting ever seemed finished to him."1 According to Mougouch, "words, explanations and titles did not interest [Gorky] unless they aroused some remembered feeling."2
Gorky's first encounter with milkweed, the perennial plant to which his title partly refers, took place during the summer of 1943 in Lincoln, Virginia, during the Gorky family's first visit to Crooked Run Farm, the country home of Mougouch's parents. In a letter from the following summer, Mougouch notes Gorky's fondness for the native wildflower: "Today [Gorky] is heart broken because the farmer has cut the weeds to let the grass grow for the cows & all looks too park-like for Gorky who loved the purple thistles & great milkweeds & ragweeds. . . He stood on the hill watching the tractor down in the bottom land moaning 'They are cutting down the Raphaels'. . . ."3 In a later interview, she specifically recalled that Gorky "couldn't get over the beauty of the milkweed with its pods with curious feathers."4
1. Agnes Gorky Fielding, interview by Matthew Spender, October 1, 1991, transcript, Matthew Spender Papers, AGF Archives; see also: Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky, "How Breton and Gorky Worked on Titles," December 22–28, 1993, in Matthew Spender, ed., Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song: A Life in Letters and Documents (Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2018), 336.
2. Cosima Spender, interview with Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky Fielding, in Tate Etc. (Issue 18: Spring 2010), https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-18-spring-2010/my-gorky.
3. Letter from Mougouch Gorky to Jeanne Reynal, Summer 1944, in Spender, ed., The Plow and the Song, 309.
4. Cosima Spender, interview with Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky Fielding.