Arshile Gorky's Newly Discovered Work Featured at Hauser & Wirth's New Gallery in Zurich, is Surreal

Zurich's Hauser & Wirth Gallery has been exhibiting an Arshile Gorky show, bringing his newly unearthed masterwork Untitled (Virginia Summer) to Europe for the first time in the artist's first solo exhibition.

Memories

 The new painting, a free-associative en plein air sketch that incorporates the artist's initial reaction to his surroundings, is a flowing interplay of soft hues that evokes the artist's memories of a rural holiday. Similar to The Limit, it straddles the artist's hallmark Abstraction and Surrealism, resulting in a dramatic disintegration of pastoral scenery into pure sensory experience.

The Limit & Virginia Summer

Wrapped in the well-known painting on paper 'The Limit' (1947), 'Untitled (Virginia Summer)' (1946-47) was affixed to the same, original stretcher Gorky used when the painting left his studio in 1947 and remains as rich and brilliant as when it was originally produced. This show will include both paintings and pieces on paper that are closely tied to the newly found composition. Prior to its debut at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Bahnhofstrasse 1, 'Beyond The Limit' was shown at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street (16 November – 23 December 2021).

Surrealism with Abstraction

Gorky, a pivotal participant in the Abstract Expressionist movement that reshaped twentieth-century American art, went through an especially fertile period of creation in the 1940s, when he started experimenting with new methods. By combining oil and turpentine, he was able to create more fluid lines, allowing him to express himself more freely and create ever more vibrant compositions. His innovations are shown in the seminal piece 'The Limit,' in which thick pigment surfaces melt into translucent veils of colour, resulting in convergent and vanishing colour fields. The vibrant forms in this painting, which were revealed during conservation to have been originally articulated as a drawing, lack bounds; instead, they are boundless creatures, connected together or drifting in and out of an unclear spatial field. By balancing Surrealism with Abstraction, 'The Limit' clearly conveys Gorky's contemplation and sensuous pleasures.

Motion & Fluidity

Long hidden under 'The Limit,' 'Untitled (Virginia Summer' mixes motion and fluidity with personal recollections of his vacations at Crooked Run Farm, the 1940s Virginia farmstead of his wife's parents. Infatuated with the pastoral environs, Gorky created a large number of drawings 'en plein air,' reflecting his primordial reactions to the natural world dynamics he encountered there via instinctive sketching and free association. With a similar cryptic allure, the newly unearthed piece implies biomorphic shapes and creatures floating in and out of a bright landscape swathed and buried in a sea of misty blue foliage.

Gorky's paintings often features animalistic characters with bulbous red and yellow eyes and colourful body parts. 'Untitled (Virginia Summer)' is an excellent and well-preserved example of Gorky's tremendous creativity and imagination. It ranks among the artist's most emotional works.

Discovery of 'Untitled (Virginia Summer)

While Gorky's technique of serious analysis and refining was never casual, the finished paintings are brimming with spontaneity, immediacy, and chance. Gorky's late gestural works blend constraint with abandonment, providing critical insight and research into the artist's approach. Additionally, the show will include a video about the discovery of 'Untitled (Virginia Summer)' by Gorky's award-winning granddaughter Cosima Spender and Valerio Bonelli, as well as the recently released first volume of the 'Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné.'

Hauser & Wirth Publishers released the book 'Beyond The Limit' in conjunction with the discovery of 'Untitled (Virginia Summer),' featuring illuminating essays by Parker Field, Managing Director of the Arshile Gorky Foundation, and Pepe Karmel, Associate Professor of Art History at New York University. The exhibition and accompanying book provide new light on Gorky's activity during the latter years of his life, when his abstract imagery and style matured.

Gorky's exhibition commenced on February 4th and will continue upto March 19th, 2022.

Featured Image: Arshile Gorky - Untitled (Virginia Summer), c. 1946 – 1947. Oil on canvas, 128.5 x 159.5 cm / 50 5/8 x 62 ¾ in ©The Arshile Gorky Foundation / Artists Rights Society. Courtesy the Arshile Gorky Foundation and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Jon Etter