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Lot Essay
This work is recorded in the Arshile Gorky Foundation Archives under number D1288.
Drawn in 1946, Arshile Gorky’s Untitled is an accomplished work on paper produced during one of the most important periods of the artist’s short, but fertile, career. The complex range of intertwined forms trace the physical movement of Gorky’s hand as it traverses across the surface of the paper, leaving an intricate trail of graphite and wax crayon marks. Out of this blend of form and line, quasi-figurative shapes begin to emerge as the artist melds together elements of abstraction and figuration into one enigmatic scene. Gorky was heavily influenced by Surrealism, along with the myths and traditions of his homeland in Armenia, and Untitled contains the same dreamlike nature that appears in his greatest works of art. Untitled has been included in several of the artist’s most important retrospectives, including the important 2003 exhibition Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Untitled comes with the distinguished provenance of having been in the personal collection of the celebrated dealer and author, Julian Levy. His eponymous gallery in New York served as an important venue for the Surrealists and other avant-garde artists in the 1930s and 1940s, and Levy also acted as Gorky’s dealer from 1944 until the artist’s sudden death in 1948. A ceaseless champion of Gorky’s work, Levy authored one of the first major monographs on the artist, published in 1968 and in which Untitled is illustrated. In his introduction, he summed up the richness and majesty of Gorky’s late drawings, and their pivotal place in the 20th century art historical canon. “In those short years from 1941 until…1948,” Levy wrote, “he achieved a critical mixture of form and abandon, tragedy and humor, ferocity and tenderness, organization and dream, abstraction and Surrealism, resulting in a series of drawings and paintings that announce greatness for the art of his century” (J. Levy, Arshile Gorky, New York, 1968, p. 10).
Drawn in 1946, Arshile Gorky’s Untitled is an accomplished work on paper produced during one of the most important periods of the artist’s short, but fertile, career. The complex range of intertwined forms trace the physical movement of Gorky’s hand as it traverses across the surface of the paper, leaving an intricate trail of graphite and wax crayon marks. Out of this blend of form and line, quasi-figurative shapes begin to emerge as the artist melds together elements of abstraction and figuration into one enigmatic scene. Gorky was heavily influenced by Surrealism, along with the myths and traditions of his homeland in Armenia, and Untitled contains the same dreamlike nature that appears in his greatest works of art. Untitled has been included in several of the artist’s most important retrospectives, including the important 2003 exhibition Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Untitled comes with the distinguished provenance of having been in the personal collection of the celebrated dealer and author, Julian Levy. His eponymous gallery in New York served as an important venue for the Surrealists and other avant-garde artists in the 1930s and 1940s, and Levy also acted as Gorky’s dealer from 1944 until the artist’s sudden death in 1948. A ceaseless champion of Gorky’s work, Levy authored one of the first major monographs on the artist, published in 1968 and in which Untitled is illustrated. In his introduction, he summed up the richness and majesty of Gorky’s late drawings, and their pivotal place in the 20th century art historical canon. “In those short years from 1941 until…1948,” Levy wrote, “he achieved a critical mixture of form and abandon, tragedy and humor, ferocity and tenderness, organization and dream, abstraction and Surrealism, resulting in a series of drawings and paintings that announce greatness for the art of his century” (J. Levy, Arshile Gorky, New York, 1968, p. 10).