Arshile Gorky
The Artist’s Wife, Mougouch
1942
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Arshile Gorky
The Artist’s Wife, Mougouch
1942
Physical Qualities
Pen and brown and black ink with brush and brown and gray wash, Sheet: 351 x 238 mm. (13 13/16 x 9 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. I.W. Burnham II, for the Thomas E. Benesch Memorial Collection
Object Number
1963.110
Arshile Gorky is best known for his unique brand of Surrealist inspired abstraction (note his painting from 1946 on view in the adjoining exhibition), though he often worked figuratively to execute his portraits. The subject is his wife, Agnes Magruder (“Mougouch”), depicted the year that their first daughter was born. Here Gorky employs crosshatching for much of the figure and background, underlying the drawing with an energetic, chaotic feel, yet switches to a softer ink wash to describe the face and hands. Gorky conveys his wife’s calm and poise, reflecting the supportive and steadying figure she was in his life.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1963; Mr. and Mrs. I.W. Burnham II, purchased from Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, NY, 1963; a New Jersey framer who traded frames for the drawing in the early 1940s, which Gorky removed from a sketch book
BMA, "Recent Accessions to the Thomas E. Benesch Memorial Collection," 30 October - 16 December 1962.
BMA, "Forty Nine Plus One: Recent Acquisitions," 30 November 1964 - 10 January 1965.
College Park, University of Maryland Art Gallery, "The Drawings of Arshile Gorky," 20 March - 27 April 1969, cat. 1.
Austin, TX, University of Texas, "Arshile Gorky," 19 October - 23 November 1975 (and tour), p. 105, illus p. 77.
Victor Carlson and Carol Hynning Smith, BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"; circulated by the American Federation of Arts to the Guggenheim Museum, NY, 24 August - 7 October 1979; Des Moines Art Center, 19 November 1979 - 6 January 1980; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, 8 February - 16 March, 1980; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1 May - 22 June 1980 ; Denver Art Museum, 12 July - 24 August, 1980.
Guggenheim Museum, NY, "Arshile Gorky 1904-1948: A Retrospective," 1981, cat. 114.
BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Museum Collection," 14 October - 28 November, 1982.
BMA, "American Watercolors, 1900-1950, From the Museum Collection," 4 February - 27 April, 1986.
Jay Fisher, BMA, "Old Master Drawings from the BMA and Gilmor Collections," 10 October - 10 December, 1989.
Fundacion Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, "Arshile Gorky 1904-1948," 17 October - 23 December 1989 (toured to Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 19 January - 25 March 1990), cat. 71.
BMA, "As Artists See Us: Drawings from the Museum Collection," 14 May - 11 August, 1991.
BMA, "The Face of America: Modernist Art 1910-1950; Painting, Sculpture, Prints, Drawings, and Native American and Decorative Arts from the Museum's Collection,"
October 9 - December 29, 1996, organized by The Baltimore Museum of Art, circulated to (selected works on paper) Academy of the Arts, Easton, September 12 - October 25, 1997.
BMA, "Select Views: Drawings from the Benesch Collection," 21 May - 30 July 2006.
BMA, "Forty Nine Plus One: Recent Acquisitions," 30 November 1964 - 10 January 1965.
College Park, University of Maryland Art Gallery, "The Drawings of Arshile Gorky," 20 March - 27 April 1969, cat. 1.
Austin, TX, University of Texas, "Arshile Gorky," 19 October - 23 November 1975 (and tour), p. 105, illus p. 77.
Victor Carlson and Carol Hynning Smith, BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"; circulated by the American Federation of Arts to the Guggenheim Museum, NY, 24 August - 7 October 1979; Des Moines Art Center, 19 November 1979 - 6 January 1980; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, 8 February - 16 March, 1980; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1 May - 22 June 1980 ; Denver Art Museum, 12 July - 24 August, 1980.
Guggenheim Museum, NY, "Arshile Gorky 1904-1948: A Retrospective," 1981, cat. 114.
BMA, "Master Drawings and Watercolors of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Museum Collection," 14 October - 28 November, 1982.
BMA, "American Watercolors, 1900-1950, From the Museum Collection," 4 February - 27 April, 1986.
Jay Fisher, BMA, "Old Master Drawings from the BMA and Gilmor Collections," 10 October - 10 December, 1989.
Fundacion Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, "Arshile Gorky 1904-1948," 17 October - 23 December 1989 (toured to Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 19 January - 25 March 1990), cat. 71.
BMA, "As Artists See Us: Drawings from the Museum Collection," 14 May - 11 August, 1991.
BMA, "The Face of America: Modernist Art 1910-1950; Painting, Sculpture, Prints, Drawings, and Native American and Decorative Arts from the Museum's Collection,"
October 9 - December 29, 1996, organized by The Baltimore Museum of Art, circulated to (selected works on paper) Academy of the Arts, Easton, September 12 - October 25, 1997.
BMA, "Select Views: Drawings from the Benesch Collection," 21 May - 30 July 2006.
Burlington Magazine, 107 (January 1965), p. 54, fig. 70.
Julien Levy, Arshile Gorky (New York: 1966), pl. 32.
BMA News, vol. XXIX, nos 3-4, 1967, p. 11, not illus.
Jim Jordan, Gorky: Drawings (NY, Knoedler: 1969), no. 58.
"The Thomas Edward Benesch Memorial Collection," BMA, 1970, unpaginated.
Kim S. Theriault, "Rethinking Arshile Gorky," University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009, p. 59, fig. 18.
Carlson, Victor, and Carol Hynning Smith. Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Baltimore Museum of Art. New York, NY: The American Federation of Arts, 1979, pp. 143, ill.
Inscribed: lower right in graphite: "a. gorky"
