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Photo: Peter Schälchli
P346
The Opaque
1947
Oil on canvas
34 x 41 in. (86.4 x 104.1 cm)
Front, lower left: A Gorky / [paraph] / 47
Reverse not seen
Reverse not seen
Private collection
Provenance
The artist
Julien Levy Gallery, New York (1947)
Julien Levy, Bridgewater, Connecticut (1949)
Estate of Arshile Gorky, by transfer (March 1950)
[Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (October 11, 1952)]
Estate of Arshile Gorky (after March 1962)
Private collection (1975)
[Hauser & Wirth (November 2016)]
Private collection (2016)
Exhibitions
1948b New York
Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, February 29–March 20, 1948, no. 7, as The Opaque.1962b New York
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Paintings by Arshile Gorky from 1929 to 1948, February 5–March 3, 1962. (Exhibition catalogue: Sidney Janis Gallery 1962), no. 26, ill. in b/w, as The Opaque.1965 AC–Brussels and Rotterdam
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings / Arshile Gorky: Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1965, no. 131, as "Het ondoorzichtige / The opaque". 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. 98, as The Opaque.1975–77 AC–London
Arts Council of Great Britain, London (organizer), Arshile Gorky: Paintings and Drawings, 1975–77, no. 14, as The Opaque. 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, 1977.1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 227a, as The Opaque, [not in catalogue]. Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.2011b New York
Gagosian Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky: 1947, May 6–July 1, 2011, as The Opaque.2017 New York
Hauser & Wirth, New York, Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943–47, November 2–December 23, 2017. (Exhibition catalogue: Spender and Devaney 2017), ill. in color, pp. 86–87; p. 139, as The Opaque.Literature
Arti Visive 1957
"Special issue on Gorky in Italian and English with text by Toti Scialoja and excerpts from Schwabacher 1957." Arti Visive 6–7 (Summer 1957), no. 7, ill. in b/w, as The Opaque.Tillim 1962
Tillim, Sydney. "Arshile Gorky." Arts Magazine (New York) 36, no. 7 (April 1962), discussed p. 50, as The Opaque.Levy 1966
Levy, Julien. Arshile Gorky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966. Monograph, pl. 198, ill. in b/w, p. 222, as The Opaque.Nielsen 1976
Nielsen, Lee. "Arshile Gorky." The Guardian (London), April 19, 1976, discussed, p. 8, as The Opaque.Rand 1976
Rand, Harry. "The Calendars of Arshile Gorky." Arts Magazine (New York) 50, no. 7 (March 1976), discussed pp. 77–79, as The Opaque.Rathbone 1978
Rathbone, Eliza E. "Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song." In American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1978. Exhibition catalogue, fig. 32, ill. in b/w, p. 77, as The Opaque.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. 8–21, ill. in b/w, p. 135, as The Opaque.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. 91, as The Opaque.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. 346, ill. in b/w, pp. 524–25, as The Opaque.Donnell-Kotrozo 1983
Donnell-Kotrozo, Carol. [no title]. Review of Arshile Gorky: The Implications of Symbols, by Harry Rand. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Hoboken, NJ) 41 (June 1983), discussed p. 462, as The Opaque.Rand 1991
Rand, Harry. Arshile Gorky: The Implication of Symbols. Rev. ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Monograph, fig. 8–21, ill. in b/w, p. 154, as The Opaque.Notes
The painting is inscribed in black paint with flourishes in white paint.
Commentary
Gorky titled the painting The Opaque 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.1 According to Julien Levy (1906–1981), by this point, in part due to André Breton's (1896–1966) departure from New York in December 1945, Gorky's process for arriving at titles had evolved from its earlier basis in collaborative plays of free association (see commentary for P287), to an increasingly succinct "vocabulary" that was "more manifest and less a process of discovery."2
1. Julien Levy Gallery, New York, Arshile Gorky, February 29–March 20, 1948. No catalogue. The works that appeared in the exhibition are known from a price list on file in the Julien Levy papers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives.
2. Julien Levy, Arshile Gorky (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1966), 36.
