{"data":{"id":"2172","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":2172,"topgoose_id":12503,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":2172,"title":"The Betrothal, II","display_artist_text":"Arshile Gorky","display_date":"1947","accession_number":"50.3","dimensions":"Overall: 50 3/4 × 38 in. (128.9 × 96.5 cm)\r\nFrame: 51 3/16 × 39 × 1 15/16 in. (130 × 99.1 × 4.9 cm)","medium":"Oil and ink on canvas","department":"collection","classification":"Paintings","credit_line":"Purchase","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eArshile Gorky, \u003cem\u003eThe Betrothal, II\u003c/em\u003e, 1947. Oil and ink on canvas, overall: 50 3/4 × 38 in. (128.9 × 96.5 cm)\r\nFrame: 51 3/16 × 39 × 1 15/16 in. (130 × 99.1 × 4.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 50.3. © The Arshile Gorky Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eIndebted to Kandinsky and Surrealism, Arshile Gorky’s mature paintings also anticipate many of the formal concerns of the emerging Abstract Expressionism movement. Painted one year before the artist’s death, \u003ci\u003eThe Betrothal, II\u003c/i\u003e features a lyrical assortment of odd, organic shapes against an overall field of soft luminous color. Although the painting appears spontaneous, Gorky actually made a number of studies for it, exploring over and over again the same fluid, biomorphic forms that suggest, along with the title, narratives of sexuality and procreation. Indeed, the attenuated shapes that emerge from the ocher background appear on the verge of metamorphosis. Some art historians have suggested that the work refers to the artist’s increasingly troubled marriage to his second wife, but ultimately \u003ci\u003eThe Betrothal, II\u003c/i\u003e, along with Gorky’s other paintings and drawings in the same series, eludes simple explanation. \u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Abstract composition of curving organic shapes and lamp-like forms on a warm orange background.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:59:05.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:46.158-05:00","images":[{"id":93793,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/2172/50_3_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"510","type":"artist"}]}}}}