Arshile Gorky (1904-1948)

Executed during an intense period of exploration, Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia is a quintessential Gorky drawing from the 1930's. Gorky was, at heart, an incredibly expressive draftsman, a trait which is equally evident in paintings and drawings. From 1931-1934, Gorky essentially eschewed making paintings and focused on works on paper, mostly executed in black ink. The reason for this restriction may have been due to his inability to afford proper painting supplies, or by choice--either way, once the artist began working on this body of work, which has come to be known as the Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia series, it consumed him.

This work shows the influence of biomorphic surrealism, by way of Picasso, as well as the dream-like mood of Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical works. Gorky was well-known for allowing himself to be influenced by artists he admired. As he told Julien Levy, "I was with Cezanne for a long time and now naturally I am with Picasso" (Arshile Gorky: Paintings Drawings Studies, New York, 1962, p. 7). Gorky also drew on unexpected sources--the figure at the right is derived from a Seventeenth-century anatomical study by Amé Bourdon.

This is the first sustained series of Gorky's career and although no two drawings are exact, they are very close--Gorky endlessly tweaked his drawings, reworking compositions in very subtle ways. It is a fascinating paradox of Gorky's seemingly spontaneous drawings, informed by the Surrealist methods of automatism, that he obsessively re-created aspects of many of them.

Many of the drawings related to this series are in public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and Yale University Art Gallery. The present lot is closely related to the eponymously named drawing in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Included in virtually every significant Gorky exhibition ever mounted, Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia is a very celebrated 1930s drawing. At least four finished versions and one incomplete version are known to exist. This version with its unified composition, fully worked and without a hint of tentativeness, is one of the best.


Gorky seated, 1933 Courtesy Mrs. Alexander Sandow c 2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Pre-Lot Text

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR, NEW YORK