New Arshile Gorky art discovered under famous painting

PanARMENIAN.Net - A gallery exhibition opening next month in Manhattan provides a seismic surprise for fans and scholars of the Armenian American artist Arshile Gorky (1904-48): An entirely new Gorky painting has been found hidden under a famous painting he did at the very end of his life, during an extraordinary period of artistic productivity, The New York Times reports.

The new work, which the Gorky estate is calling “Untitled (Virginia Summer)” (1946-47), is a brand-new addition to his oeuvre. Nobody knew it existed — though his two daughters, one of his biographers and a couple of conservators had long known that something was there. His daughter Maro Spender called it “a truly remarkable happening.”

Michaela Ritter, one of the two Swiss conservators who did the uncovering, said: “It’s not that we have something like this every year. It’s really special.”

The new work, a painting on canvas, was tucked just beneath “The Limit,” (1947), a well-known painting on paper that had been on loans to the National Gallery of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art for years, hanging on the walls with no one the wiser about the treasure underneath it.

The two paintings will be shown by the gallery Hauser & Wirth, which represents the Gorky estate, from Nov. 16 to Dec. 23 at its Chelsea branch, along with related drawings and works on paper. (None of the pieces are for sale). A new catalogue raisonné that comprehensively lists Mr. Gorky’s output, including “Untitled (Virginia Summer),” is being published by the Arshile Gorky Foundation this month.