Recognized as one of the progenitors of Abstract Expressionism, Arshile Gorky was one of the first artists to liberate the formal elements of painting. His mature work, an evocative synthesis of form and imagination, had a profound influence on the development of many American artists, among them Jackson Pollock and Willem DeKooning.

While his large oils played a major role in the formation of his abstract style, Gorky's drawings played an equally vital part in his artistic evolution. Gorky drew whenever possible, motivated by a desire to perfect his technique and by a need to record his immediate perceptions, memories, and feelings.

Head/Abstract, one of the few figurative drawings extant from the twenties and thirties, exemplifies Gorky's ability to synthesize the traditional and the modern. In the work, probably rendered from a live model, Gorky uses his characteristic flowing line to capture and delineate the contours of the woman's head. At the same time, inspired by Picasso's late Cubism, he creates shadow and depth, and demarcates the woman's profile, through cross-hatching. The influence of Picasso's treatment of anatomical form is also evident in Gorky's extreme simplification of the facial features, which gives his subject a mysterious, enigmatic countenance.

Head/Abstract reveals Gorky's early tendency towards abstraction. Most importantly, it also represents the passion for drawing that lay at the heart of his artistic creativity throughout his career. In Gorky's view good draftmanship was the: ...basis of art. A bad painter cannot draw. But one who draws well can always paint ...Drawing gives the artist the ability to control his line and hand. It develops in him the precision of line and touch. This is the path toward master work. Arshile Gorky quoted in Karlen Mooradian, Arshile Gorky Adoian (Chicago: Gilgarnesh Press, 1978), p.27.