Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Jerry L. Thompson
P289
(To Project, To Conjure)
1944
Oil on canvas
35 3/4 x 46 3/4 in. (90.8 x 118.7 cm)
Front, lower left: A. Gorky / 44
Reverse not seen
Private collection
Exhibitions
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings / Arshile Gorky: Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1965, no. 71, as "Plannen en gissingen maken / To project, to conjure". 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. 58, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky: Paintings and Drawings, 1975–77, no. 11, as "To Protect, To Conjure". Traveled to: Southampton Art Gallery, United Kingdom, December 12, 1975–February 22, 1976; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, United Kingdom, April 3–May 2, 1976; Sunderland Art Gallery, United Kingdom, June 5–August 15, 1976; City Art Gallery, Dundee, United Kingdom, August 21–November 27, 1976; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, United Kingdom, December 19, 1976–January 16, 1977; Serpentine Gallery, London, March 12–April 11, 1977.
Xavier Fourcade Inc, New York, Arshile Gorky: Important Paintings and Drawings, April 3–28, 1979, ill. in color, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 163, ill. in color, p. 191, as "To Protect, To Conjure". Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.
Gagosian Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: Late Paintings, January 11–March 5, 1994, ill. in color, p. 31; p. 42, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Literature
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. 86–87, as "To Project, To Conjure".
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. 289, ill. in b/w, pp. 445–46, as "To Project, To Conjure".
Lader, Melvin P. Arshile Gorky. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Monograph, fig. 83, ill. in color, p. 84, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Kimmelman, Michael. "Arshile Gorky: Late Years of a Tragic Figure." New York Times, February 6, 1994, ill. in b/w, sec. 2, p. 31, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Tesch, Jürgen, and Eckhard Hollmann, eds. Icons of Art: The 20th Century. Munich and New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1997, ill. in color, p. 117, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Herrera, Hayden. Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003, fig. 155, ill. in color, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Thomas, Kelly Devine. "The Most Wanted Works of Art." Artnews (New York) (November 1, 2003), discussed, as "To Protect, To Conjure".
Notes

Commentary

According to the artist's wife Agnes "Mougouch" Gorky (1921–2013), To Project, To Conjure was a lifetime title, which was decided upon by Gorky and André Breton (1896–1966) through a collaborative process of free association that the two artists jointly devised in the months preceding Gorky's debut solo show at the Julien Levy Gallery in March 1945 (see commentary for P287).1 Given there is no known extant lifetime documentation confirming the title's origin with the artist, we have designated it as posthumous, with its spelling in accordance with Jim M. Jordan's catalogue raisonné.2

1. Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, March 6–31, 1945. 

2. 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), 445–46.

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