Arshile Gorky
Born – Khorkin, Armenia 1904
Died – Sherman, USA 1948
Arshile Gorky (born Vosdanik Adoian) has been credited with providing the link between European Surrealism and avant-garde art in America. He fled to the United States in 1920 after his mother’s death as a result of the Turkish persecution of Armenians during the First World War. This enforced uprooting led to a preoccupation with his own identity. He adopted his familiar pseudonym and embraced the modernist art achievements of Miro, Picasso and Cézanne, seemingly insecure in his own potential for originality. His work was an eclectic mix of styles. Roberto Matta and André Breton particularly impressed Gorky and he adopted wholeheartedly the tenets of the Surrealists most notably that of biomorphism, the creation of abstracted, organic – as opposed to geometric – forms. The automatic and intuitive nature of Gorky’s approach had a specific impact on the development of Abstract Expressionism. Gorky interpreted form and translated it into organic, linear concotions, suspended in fluid colours that melt and fuse. The dreamy lyricism of Agony belies its title, a reference, perhaps to the inner conflicts, exacerbated by the personal disasters – a fire, an operation and a car crash – that led to his suicide.
Masterpieces:
- Waterfall
- The Betrothal II
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.