Catalogue Entry
Reverse not inscribed
The reverse inscription information is known from the records of the Arshile Gorky Foundation. The stretcher bars have been replaced.
On loan: Art Institute of Chicago, March 12, 1964–September 19, 1984.
Commentary
Gorky titled the painting Anti Medusa in preparation for its 1948 showing at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, which took place several months before his death in July of that year.
The painting was a gift from the Estate of Arshile Gorky to the artist's younger sister Vartoosh Mooradian (née Adoian; 1906–1991). During a period that ultimately lasted four years and eight months—between June 1915, when forcibly displaced by the Armenian genocide, and February 26, 1920, when they arrived at Ellis Island aboard the Italian ship, the S.S. Presidente Wilson—the two siblings emigrated together to the United States, through ports that included Batumi, Georgia; Constantinople (present-day Istanbul); Athens; Patras, Greece; and Naples.
The Arshile Gorky Foundation is pleased to present a fully-searchable catalogue raisonné of Arshile Gorky’s known paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, and textile. The present installment provides the most up-to-date and authoritative documentation on over two thousand known works created by Gorky between 1924, the year the artist moved to New York, and 1948, the year of his death. It is a living project that we continue to augment with new information upon the confirmation of our ongoing research. Full access to the Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné is available to users at no charge.