Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) was a seminal figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. His drawings are beautiful, complex, and sensual creations, the products of a technical mastery that bespoke a new power of abstraction within modern art. They are also pivotal to the understanding of his art and play a major part in the development and realization of his paintings. This handsome volume, and the exhibition it accompanies-the first retrospective ever assembled of this influential artist's drawings-focus on how Gorky's drawings function both in relation to his paintings and as individual works of art.

Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) was a seminal figure in the art of the first half of the twentiethcentury, and his drawings plag a fundamental role in his development as an artist. For Gorky drawing was the basis of art, and this demanding medium drove his visual inven-tiveness to new heights. Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings traces the progress ion of Gorky"s work, beginning with the classical nudes of.his early years at New York"s Grand Central School of Art and moving to the sensual, organic abstraction of his later works from the 1940s. These drawings are the key to understanding the evo]ution of his sty]e and the intense struggle that occurred in his process of creation. The power and importance ofth se mature works lie in the beauty of the forms and his understanding of the whole composition as abstraction.

Having fled Armenia in 1920, Gorky"s informal education came largely from visiting the museums and galleries of New York City. He studied and absorbed the work of the great masters and avant-garde contemporaries. During the 1920s and 1930s he adopted formal devices from the artists he admired. Through experimentation with he line of Ingres, the landscapes of Cezanne, the compositions of Picasso, and the theorles and techniques of the Surrealists, Gorkg developed his own unique visual language. His new treatment of color and line influenced later artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Eva Hesse, who in turn changed the look of twentieth-centurg art.

For drawkg, drawing was not just a part of the compositional process-it was also an end in itself. His courageous pursuit of risk and experiment in his stylistic development made drawing a crucial component of his artistic practice. These complex and beautiful drawings deserve to be counted among the masterpieces of the twentieth century.

Foreword

maxwell L.Anderson

Acknowledgments

Janie C.Lee

Introduction

Janie C.Lee

What the Drawings Reveal:

Some Observations on Arshile

Gorky＇s Working Method

Melvin P.Lader

Arshile Gorky:The Power of Drawing

Janie C.Lee

Plates

Works in the Exhibition

Selected Drawings Exhibition History

Chronology

Selected Bibliography

Lenders to the Exhibition

Index