Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky Memorial Exhibition, January 5–February 18, 1951, no. 77, p. 48. Traveled to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, March 4–April 22, 1951; San Francisco Museum of Art, California, May 9–July 9, 1951.

1955c New York

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Drawings for Principal Paintings by Gorky, September 26–October 22, 1955, no. 1, ill. in b/w, invitation card, as "Housatonic".

1965a Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Special Exhibition for the College Art Association, January 18–April 16, 1965.

1967a Irvine

University of California, Irvine, A Selection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Works from The Hunt Foods and Industries Museum of Art Collection, March 7–22, 1967, no. 15, ill. in b/w, p. 35, as "Housatonic". Traveled to: University of California at Davis, April 3–28, 1967; University of California at Riverside, May 10–30, 1967; Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, July 7–October 1, 1967.

1969e New York

M. Knoedler & Co. Inc, New York, Gorky: Drawings, November 25–December 27, 1969. (Exhibition catalogue: Jordan 1969), no. 64, ill. in b/w, p. 35; p. 58, as "The Housatonic".

1976a New York

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Twentieth Century American Drawing: Three Avant-Garde Generations, January 23–March 28, 1976, no. 82, as "The Housatonic". Traveled to: Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany, May 27–July 11, 1976; Kunsthalle, Bremen, Germany, July 18–August 29, 1976.

1981–82 New York

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 134, ill. in b/w, p. 167, as "The Housatonic". Traveled to: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 12–November 6, 1981; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 3, 1981–February 28, 1982.

1998b New York

Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, Master Drawings of the Twentieth Century, May 5–June 5, 1998, no. 16, ill. in color, ill. p. 43, as "The Housatonic".

2003–04b New York

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings, November 20, 2003–February 15, 2004, no. 70, ill. in color, p. 135; p. 243, as "Housatonic". Traveled to: Menil Collection, Houston, March 5–May 9, 2004.

Literature

Schwabacher 1957

Schwabacher, Ethel. Arshile Gorky. Introduction by Meyer Schapiro. New York: The Macmillan Company for the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1957. Monograph, fig. 40, ill. in b/w, p. 90, as "The Housatonic".

Sidney Janis Gallery 1957

33 Paintings by Arshile Gorky. New York: Sidney Janis Gallery, 1957. Exhibition catalogue (1957f New York), no. 37, ill, in b/w (in situ), as "Gallery View, Gorky Exhibition, September 1955".

Johnson 1967

Johnson, Charles. "Art Views: Visit with a Happy Family." Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, CA), April 23, 1967, ill. in b/w, sec. L, p. 14, as "Housatonic".

Jordan 1976

Jordan, Jim. M. "Arshile Gorky at Crooked Run Farm." Arts Magazine (New York) 50, no. 7 (March 1976), discussed pp. 102–103, 103 fn20, as "Housatonic".

Notes

Watermark / Stamp: Arches

Arches paper with watermark: INGRES FRANCE M.D.

Verso [not in artist's hand]: J.L.-3; 64 [circled]

The drawing is overmatted; the recto inscription and verso marking are known from the Arshile Gorky Research Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art Archives, New York.

Commentary

The drawing first appeared with the title Housatonic, by which it has since been known, in Sidney Janis Gallery's 1955 exhibition Drawings for Principal Paintings by Gorky.¹ The appellation references the Housatonic river in New Milford, Connecticut, where Gorky and his wife Agnes "Mougouch" (1921–2013) spent several weeks at the home of the artist Saul Schary (1904–1978) in August 1942.²

Having reduced his activity as a dealer during the early years of the war, Julien Levy (1906–1981) moved his gallery to its final location of 42 East 57th Street in March 1943. He signed a contract with Gorky in December 1944. Levy had known Gorky for over ten years at this point, without having shown an interest in representing his work. He offered the artist a contract following a recommendation from André Breton (1896–1966), who promised to write an introductory essay to Gorky’s debut solo show, which opened in March 1945.³This drawing is among the first selection of works that Levy received from the artist on December 21, 1944, and, based on this fact, it is probable, though unconfirmed, that it was included in the 1945 exhibition.

1. Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, Drawings for Principal Paintings by Gorky, September 26–October 22, 1955. Unpublished checklist.

2. Letter from Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, August 2, 1942, Arshile Gorky/Mooradian Archive, Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York. Arshile Gorky to Vartoosh Mooradian, August 2, 1942, in Matthew Spender, ed., Arshile Gorky: The Plow and the Song: A Life in Letters and Documents, trans. Father Krikor Maksoudian (Zurich: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2018), 159–60, 268–69.

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

Related Work

Composition I

1943

Ink, crayon, and graphite pencil on laid paper

D1331

Ink, crayon, and graphite pencil on laid paper

Record last updated March 15, 2024. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.

Citation: Costello, Eileen, ed. "(Housatonic), 1943, D0285." In Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné. New York: The Arshile Gorky Foundation. www.gorkycatalogue.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=313 (accessed on April 20, 2024).