Catalogue Entry
Reverse not inscribed
Commentary
Gorky titled the painting Pastoral 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 The painting's overall composition is closely referenced in eight known drawings (see related work).
In 2010, when Pastoral was reframed in preparation for an exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, London, a second, previously unseen painting was discovered underneath it, affixed to the original stretcher. Gorky had mounted Pastoral directly over this second work and both paintings shared the same stretcher for over sixty years until they were separated in 2010. The newly uncovered work, catalogued here as P370, is characteristic of the Pastoral series.