Verso not inscribed
Verso, upper left [not in artist's hand]: No. 67
The verso inscription information and marking are known from the records of Melvin P. Lader.
Commentary
In 1927, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was commissioned to design a monument to commemorate his good friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918). A year later, after several of his ideas were rejected, he enlisted the help of the sculptor Julio González (1876–1942), who was an old friend and an accomplished metal worker. Picasso supplied González with studies of his vision for a welded iron sculpture. One of his drawings was published in the 1929 issue of Cahiers d'Art, a copy of which Gorky had in his library.1 Picasso's drawing, with its thin ink lines and crosshatched areas of shading, captured Gorky's imagination. It inspired nine drawings which served as studies for the painting Organization (P146; see related work). Here, the ball-capped iron rods Picasso rendered for González are carried over into Gorky's composition.
1. Cahiers d'Art, nos. 8–9 (Paris, 1929): 352.