Arshile Gorky
Mojave1941-1942

Not on view

Horizontal abstract painting with biomorphic forms in black, white, red, and yellow against a chartreuse background, with loosely suggested eyes and figure-like shapes

Artist or Maker: Arshile Gorky
Armenia, active United States, 1904-1948
Title: Mojave
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1941-1942
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 37 × 49 × 2 in. (93.98 × 124.46 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Burt Kleiner
Accession Number: M.64.61
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: Arshile Gorky’s engagement with European modernism brought him into contact with several Surrealists living in exile or exhibiting in the United States, including Wifredo Lam, André Masson, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy, whose art and ideas had an impact on his own work. Gorky’s paintings would create a crucial link between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism. Though his visual vocabulary was primarily abstract, his paintings often reference personal events. The title of this work alludes to a road trip through the Mojave Desert that Gorky took during the summer of 1941 with his partner Agnes Magruder and sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

Wall label, 2021.
Selected Bibliography: Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
Tuchman, Maurice, editor. New York School, The First Generation: Paintings of the 1940s and 1950s. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965.
Gale, Matthew. Arshile Gorky: enigma and nostalgia. London: Tate Publishing, 2010.
Eliel, Carol. John Altoon. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2014.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, and Yomiuri Shimbun, eds. Founders and Heirs of the New York School. Japan: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1997.
Copyright: © The Arshile Gorky Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Related Unframed

Arshile Gorky
Mojave1941-1942

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Arshile Gorky
Armenia, active United States, 1904-1948
Title: Mojave
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1941-1942
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 37 × 49 × 2 in. (93.98 × 124.46 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Burt Kleiner
Accession Number: M.64.61
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: Arshile Gorky’s engagement with European modernism brought him into contact with several Surrealists living in exile or exhibiting in the United States, including Wifredo Lam, André Masson, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy, whose art and ideas had an impact on his own work. Gorky’s paintings would create a crucial link between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism. Though his visual vocabulary was primarily abstract, his paintings often reference personal events. The title of this work alludes to a road trip through the Mojave Desert that Gorky took during the summer of 1941 with his partner Agnes Magruder and sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

Wall label, 2021.
Selected Bibliography: Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
Tuchman, Maurice, editor. New York School, The First Generation: Paintings of the 1940s and 1950s. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965.
Gale, Matthew. Arshile Gorky: enigma and nostalgia. London: Tate Publishing, 2010.
Eliel, Carol. John Altoon. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2014.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, and Yomiuri Shimbun, eds. Founders and Heirs of the New York School. Japan: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1997.
Copyright: © The Arshile Gorky Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York