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| Arshile Gorky (1904 -1948 ) |
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Living a life dominated by tragedy and despair, Arshile Gorky nevertheless became one of the most important abstract 20th-century artists. Born Vosdanig Adoian in Turkish Armenia, he was an Armenian refugee who escaped the Turkish slaughter during World War I and came to the United States in 1920, settling first in New England. |
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He studied art briefly in providence and Boston but was largely self taught, learning techniques of post -impressionism, cubism and surrealism. From 1925 to 1931, he taught at the Grand Central School of Art in New York and became associated with Stuart Davis and Willem de Kooning. About 1930, he took the name of Gorky, from the Russian writer with that name, which means "bitter one" in Russian. He added Arshile, likely after the mythical Achilles. In 1927, he began to adopt a style of Synthetic Cubism and in the late 1930s added Surrealism. He also worked as a WPA muralist and in 1941 married, which brought him the most stable existence he had after much poverty and neglect. He spent much time in Virginia and Connecticut, enjoying the countryside. But tragedy struck again including a studio fire, divorce, cancer, and a disabling auto accident. In 1948 at age forty-three, he committed suicide. The book "Black Angel: A Life of Arshile Gorky" by Nouritza Matossian is a comprehensive biography of this artist. |
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