«[Portrait of Z. Sharkey] dates from the
year of the first
postwar Venice Biennale which offered almost the first glimpse in Europe of the new American painting,» writes Philip Ryland, Director of the Collection, «largely thanks to the collection of Peggy Guggenheim which was exhibited in the Greek Pavilion that
year: William Baziotes, Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell, Richard Pousette - Dart, Jackson Pollock,
Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still.