Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) was an Armenian-American painter who was an important proponent of Abstract Expressionism.

In 1946, Gorky spent the summer at a country estate in Lincoln, Virginia. In this time, he drew feverishly, producing almost 300 drawings.

The drawings included a study for what is now considered one of his most remarkable paintings, The Limit (1947), a work that he described as the outcome of being “so lonely, exasperated, and how to paint such empty space—so empty it‘s the limit.”

Also among Gorky’s artistic yield from the summer of 1946 were a group of related pieces that came to be referred to as the Virginia Summer drawings.

During a 2020 conservation treatment on The Limit, conservators discovered that nested behind it was another work —an expressively painted canvas.

This publication reveals this newly discovered painting and defines its place in the artist’s oeuvre.

Published with Hauser & Wirth.