Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia

1925–1931

Teaches at the Grand Central School of Art

Edmund Greacen of the Grand Central Art Galleries asked Gorky to teach at the Grand Central School of Art in New York, and he stayed there until 1931; his notable students included Revington Arthur. Other accounts say he taught there from 1926.

1930

Group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art

Works by the members of the group to which Gorky belonged were shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

1930s

Collaboration with Davis, de Kooning and Graham

In the 1930s Gorky worked closely with Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning and John Graham.

1931

First solo exhibition in Philadelphia

Gorky’s first solo exhibition took place at the Mellon Galleries in Philadelphia.

1935

Contract with the Guild Art Gallery

Gorky signed a three-year contract with the Guild Art Gallery in New York, co-owned by Anna Walinska and Margaret Lefranc but funded and directed by Lefranc. The gallery organized his first solo exhibition in New York, “Abstract Drawings by Arshile Gorky”.

1935

Joins the WPA Federal Art Project

Gorky became one of the first artists employed by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration; it later came to include Alice Neel, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Diego Rivera and Mark Rothko.