Arshile Gorky

Child's Companions

An exquisite web of lines dances gracefully across a void. At times they appear organic, with human-like contours, and at times they seem like a constructed, angular framework. The design is punctuated by wisps of brilliant color, which are painted lightly or allowed to soak into the canvas.

Arshile Gorky’s Child’s Companions is informed by Surrealist notions of separating forms from practical function. The work also echoes the curves of early Islamic calligraphy, which the artist studied closely, as well the ancient sculptural reliefs that he saw as a boy in Armenia. Gorky closely observed the natural world, and certain passages of Child’s Companions recall the shapes of plants and insects.

This work was drafted through the practice of automatism: a spontaneous, free-association drawing technique. Uncontrolled by forethought, automatism allowed Gorky to produce images that simultaneously exhibit childlike innocence and profound psychological depth.