Skip to main content

Still Life (Composition with Vegetables)

Primary (Khorkom, Ottoman Empire [now Dilkaya, Turkey], circa 1904–Sherman, Connecticut, 1948)
NationalityAmerican, North America
Datecirca 1928
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 31 x 39 x 2 1/4 in. (78.7 x 99.1 x 5.7 cm)
Canvas: 28 1/16 x 36 1/16 in. (71.3 x 91.6 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Albert Erskine to the Mari and James A. Michener Collection, G1974.6
Rights Statement
Collection AreaModern and Contemporary Art
Object numberG1974.6
On View
On view
Locations
  • exhibition  BMA, Gallery, B3 - Huntington Gallery
Label Text

Arshile Gorky (born Vosdanig Adoian), an Armenian refugee to the United States, settled in New York City in 1924 and embarked on a series of self-imposed apprenticeships to the virtuosos of modern art. Believing that an artist’s discovery of their unique style could come only after thoroughly studying the innovations of other painters, Gorky made frequent visits to Albert Eugene Gallatin’s Gallery of Living Art at New York University, one of the first public collections of modern art in the United States. Gorky made his own variations on works by artists such as Paul Cézanne and Giorgio de Chirico in order to master their techniques, but his most enduring and productive engagement was with Pablo Picasso. Composition with Vegetables features the colorful palette and flattened, overlapping forms typical of Picasso’s Synthetic Cubist still lifes.

ProvenancePer Arshile Gorky catalogue raisonné:The artist [Likely Mellon Galleries, Philadelphia (by February 1934)] Bernard Davis / La France Art Institute, Philadelphia (c. February 1934) Miami Museum of Modern Art (after 1959) [Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, Modern Paintings and Drawings Belonging to Miami Museum of Modern Art, November 24, 1962, lot 158] Frances Leventritt, New York (November 24, 1962) [Isobel Grossman, New York (c. 1974)] Albert R. Erskine Jr., Westport, Connecticut (1974) Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, by gift (1974)
Exhibitions
Dialogue of the Edge
Arshile Gorky [born Vosdanig Adoian]
circa 1946
This image is for study only, and may not accurately represent the object’s true color or scale…
Jimmy Jalapeeno (born Albert James Bonar, Jr.)
1968
Studio Still Life
Maurice Freedman
1962
Still Life with Tulip II
Robert De Niro
1960
Purple and Red Still Life
Morgan Russell
circa 1920
Still Life
Charles Sheeler
1931
Summer Vegetables
Howard Cook
1930
Summer Vegetables
Howard Cook
1930
Summer Vegetables
Howard Cook
1930