Jun 09, 2011 - Sale 2250

Sale 2250 - Lot 45

Price Realized: $ 2,640
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
ARSHILE GORKY
Two pencil drawings.

Still Life with Fruit. 224x301 mm; 8 3/4x11 7/8 inches. Inscribed "By Gorky for Hans Burkhardt," in pencil, verso. With a series of geometric studies in pencil, on the verso * Abstract Composition with Organic Form. 287x204 mm; 11 1/4x8 inches. Inscribed "By Gorky for Hans Burkhardt," in pencil, verso. With an unfinished sketch on the verso.

Gorky shared a studio with Hans Burkhardt (1904-1994) in New York from 1928-37. When Burkhardt left New York for Los Angeles in the late 1930s, he brought with him the largest holding of Gorky's work outside of the artist's own collection and was largely influential in increasing Gorky's popularity with numerous West Coast curators and collectors. In 1947, the year before Gorky's suicide, Burkhardt donated Self Portrait, oil, 1928, by Gorky to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.