Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
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Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Peter Schälchli
D0521
[Organization]
c. 1935
Ink on paper
11 1/4 x 14 1/4 in. (28.6 x 36.2 cm)
Recto, in ink, upper left: Gorky
Verso not inscribed
Private collection
Exhibitions
Boyer Galleries, Philadelphia, Gorky: Drawings, October 1–20, 1935.
Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland, Arshile Gorky: Œuvres sur Papier, 1929–1947; Arbeiten auf Papier, 1929–1947, September 21–November 11, 1990, no. 18, ill. in b/w, p. 63; p. 194, as "Untitled". Traveled to: Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, January 16–February 27, 1991; Musée Cantini, Marseille, France, March 15–May 30, 1991; Musée d'art Moderne de Saint Étienne, France, June 20–September 2, 1991; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, September 25–November 10, 1991; Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany, November 19, 1991–January 26, 1992.
Literature
Bonte, C.H. "Philadelphia Is Ready for Its Season of Art." Philadelphia Inquirer, September 29, 1935, ill. in b/w, p. 13, as "Just Arshile Gorky Being Abstract".
Notes

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.

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