Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné
Print this page

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Photo: © Courtesy the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
D0640
[Drawing for Mechanics of Flying]
1936
Gouache and graphite pencil on paper
Image: 13 1/2 x 16 3/4 in. (34.3 x 42.5 cm)
Sheet: 15 x 18 1/4 in. (38.1 x 46.4 cm)
Not inscribed
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
50th Anniversary Gift of Alan H. Temple (80.16)
Exhibitions
1954c New York
Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, Two Lyric Abstractionists: Gorky, Works of the Middle Period / Trökes, Recent Gouaches and Drawings, March 31–April 24, 1954, as "Study for a Mural," [not in checklist].
1980d New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 50th Anniversary Gifts, June 3–August 31, 1980, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Airport Aviation Murals".
1981e New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Drawing Acquisitions, 1978–1981, September 17–November 15, 1981, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Airport Aviation Murals".
1981–82 New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Arshile Gorky 1904–1948: A Retrospective, April 24–July 19, 1981, no. 86a, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Aviation Murals," dated c. 1936, [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.
1989b New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Art in Place: Fifteen Years of Acquisitions, July 7–October 29, 1989, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Airport Aviation Murals".
1992 New York
Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Center, New York, American Masters: Six Artists from the Permanent Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, January 10–March 18, 1992, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Airport Aviation Murals". Traveled to: Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Stamford, Connecticut, April 17–June 17, 1992.
2009–10 Philadelphia
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, October 15, 2009–January 10, 2010. (Exhibition catalogue: Taylor 2009a), pl. 83, ill. in color, p. 239; p. 388, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, for Aviation: Evolution of Forms under Aerodynamic Limitations (Newark Airport Mural)," dated c. 1936–37, [exhibited in Philadelphia only]. Traveled to: Tate Modern, London, February 10–May 3, 2010 (Gale 2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, June 6–September 20, 2010 (Gale 2010).
2025 Austin
Blanton Museum of Art, the University of Texas at Austin, In Creative Harmony: Three Artistic Partnerships, February 16–July 20, 2025.
Literature
Porter 1954
Porter, Fairfield. "Reviews and Previews." Artnews (New York) 53 (April 1954), discussed, p. 53.
Bulletin of the Whitney Museum of American Art 1980a
"Acquisitions." Bulletin of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) 2 (Fall 1980), ill. in b/w, p. 52, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Airport Aviation Murals".
Bulletin of the Whitney Museum of American Art 1980b
"50th Anniversary Gifts." Bulletin of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) 2 (Fall 1980), discussed p. 61, as "Study for Mechanics of Flying, Newark Airport Aviation Murals".
Notes

Verso, in pencil [not in artist's hand]: ↑; lower right: 16 5/8 x 13 3/8 [sideways]

The verso inscription information and marking are known from the records of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Commentary

This is a preparatory drawing for P141w, one of two panels that formed the east wall of Gorky's ten-panel Newark Airport mural cycle, which he completed for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP) between 1935 and 1937 (see P141). 

Although the WPA/FAP gave the Newark Airport commission the overarching title Aviation: Evolution of Forms Under Aerodynamic Limitations, by December 1936, Gorky had selected distinct titles for each of the four walls on which the panels were suspended (North, South, East, and West). He designated the two-panel east wall series Mechanics of Flying, in accordance with which the drawing is catalogued here.1

In a written interpretation submitted in December 1936, at the request of the WPA/FAP's Washington Office, Gorky offers the following description of Mechanics of Flying: "I have used morphic shapes: the objects portrayed, a thermometer, hygrometer, anemometer. . . all have definitely important usage in aviation, and to emphasize this, I have given them importance by detaching them from their environment."2 

1. Arshile Gorky, "My Murals for the Newark Airport: An Interpretation," December 1936, handwritten manuscript, viii, AGF Archives.

2. Ibid.

Related Work

Theme: Mural

loading