Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky
Birth name	Vostanik Manoog Adoyan
Born	April 15, 1904 Van, Turkey
Died	July 21, 1948 Sherman, Connecticut, USA
Nationality	Armenian
Field	Painting, Drawing
Famous works	Landscape in the Manner of Cezanne (1927) Nighttime, Enigma, Nostalgia (1930 - 1934)

Vostanik Manoog Adoyan, (better known as Arshile Gorky) (April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. Image File history File links Arshile-gorky. ... is the 105th day of the year (106th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ... Van (Armenian ) is a city in eastern Turkey and the seat of Van Province, and is located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. ... is the 202nd day of the year (203rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Sherman is the northernmost town of Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. ... For building painting, see painter and decorator. ... Drawing is a visual art which makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. ... is the 105th day of the year (106th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ... is the 202nd day of the year (203rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Jackson Pollock, No. ...

Biography

Gorky was born in the village of Khorkom near Van, Turkey. It is not known exactly when he was born: it was sometime between 1902 and 1905. (In later years Gorky was always vague about even the date of his birthday, it would change from year to year!) In 1910 his father emigrated to America to avoid the draft, leaving his family behind in the town of Van. Gorky fled Van in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide and escaped with his mother and his three sisters into Russian-controlled territory. In the aftermath of the genocide, Gorky's mother died of starvation in Yerevan in 1919. Gorky was reunited with his father when he arrived in America in 1920, aged 16, but they never grew close. At age 31, Gorky married. He changed his name to Arshile Gorky, in the process reinventing his identity (he even told people he was a relative of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky). Van (Armenian ) is a city in eastern Turkey and the seat of Van Province, and is located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. ... Van (Armenian ) is a city in eastern Turkey and the seat of Van Province, and is located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. ... Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Armenian Genocide photo. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (In Russian Алексей Максимович Пешков) (March 28 [O.S. March 16] 1868–June 18, 1936), better known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Горький), was a Soviet/Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. ...

In 1922, Gorky enrolled in the New School of Design in Boston, eventually becoming a part-time instructor. During the early 1920s he was influenced by impressionism, although later in the decade he produced works that were more postimpressionist. During this time he was living in New York and was influenced by Paul Cezanne. In 1927, Gorky met Ethel Kremer Schwabacher and developed a life lasting friendship. Schwabacher was his first biographer. Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ... The 1920s is a decade that is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists, who began exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s. ... Post-Impressionism is a term applied to a number of painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries whose style developed out of or reacted against that of the Impressionists. ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the state of New York and the entire United States. ... Categories: 1839 births | 1906 deaths | French painters | Post-impressionism | Artist stubs ... Ethel Kremer Schwabacher Ethel Kremer Schwabacher (b. ...

Notable paintings from this time include Landscape in the Manner of Cezanne (1927) and Landscape, Staten Island (1927 - 1928). At the close of the 1920s and into the 1930s he experimented with cubism, eventually moving to surrealism. Nighttime, Enigma, Nostalgia (1930-1934) is a series of complex works that characterize this phase of his painting. The canvas below Portrait of Master Bill depicts Gorky's friend, Willem de Kooning. The 1920s is a decade that is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Face The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Max Ernst. ...

Portrat of Master Bill by Arshile Gorky, 1929-36, . Oil on canvas.

In English translations of letters allegedly written by Gorky in Armenian to his sisters he often described moods of melancholy, and expressed loneliness and emptiness, nostalgia for his country, and bitterly and vividly recalled the circumstances of his mother's death. Most of these translations (especially those expressing nationalistic sentiments or imparting specific meanings to his paintings) are now considered to be fakes produced by Karlen Mooradian (a nephew of Gorky) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, the contents of the fake letters heavily influenced the authors of books written about Gorky and his art during the 1970s and 80s. Image File history File links Master-bill. ... Image File history File links Master-bill. ...

The years preceding Gorky's suicide were filled with immense pain and heartbreak. His studio barn burned down, he underwent a colostomy for cancer, his neck was broken and his painting arm temporarily paralyzed in a car accident, and his wife of seven years left him, taking their children with her. Gorky hanged himself in Sherman, Connecticut, in 1948, at the age of 44. He is buried in North Cemetery in Sherman, Connecticut. A colostomy is a surgical procedure that involves connecting a part of the colon onto the anterior abdominal wall, leaving the patient with an opening on the abdomen called a stoma. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... Sherman is the northernmost town of Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. ...

Gorky's contributions to American and world art are difficult to overestimate. The painterly spontaneity of mature works like "The Liver is the Cock's Comb," "The Betrothal II," and "One Year the Milkweed" immediately prefigured Abstract expressionism, and leaders in the New York School have acknowledged Gorky's considerable influence. But his oeuvre is a phenomenal achievement in its own right, synthesizing Surrealism and the sensuous color and painterliness of the School of Paris with his own highly personal formal vocabulary. His paintings and drawings hang in every major American museum including the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (which maintains the Gorky Archive), and in many worldwide, including the Tate in London. Jackson Pollock, No. ... The New York School (synonymous with abstract expressionist painting) was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s in New York City. ... School of Paris (École de Paris) refers to two distinct groups of artists — a group of medieval manuscript illuminators, and a group of non-French artists working in Paris before World War I. Additionally, it refers to a similar group of artists living in Paris between the two world... The West building of the National Gallery of Art with the East building visible behind and to to the left The National Gallery of Art is an art museum, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum was established in 1937 by the Congress, with funds for... View across garden, in new MoMA building by Yoshio Taniguchi. ... Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Elevation The Metropolitan Museum of Art, often referred to simply as The Met, is one of the worlds largest and most important art museums. ... Night view of Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art is an art gallery and museum in New York City founded in 1931 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. ... The logo of Tate, used in different colours for the 4 galleries. ...

Gorky in fiction

As a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, an actor portraying Gorky appears in Atom Egoyan's movie Ararat. Armenian Genocide photo. ... Atom Egoyan at the Third Golden Apricot Film Festival. ... A DVD cover of the movie Ararat Atom Egoyans 2002 film Ararat is a complex work, with many autobiographical and self-referential elements, about an Armenian-Canadian filmmaker making a film about the Armenian Genocide. ...

Gorky appears as a character in Charles L. Mee's play about Joseph Cornell, Hotel Cassiopeia. Charles L. Mee is an American playwright and author. ... A photograph of Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell, (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972), was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. ...

He's also briefly mentioned in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Bluebeard."

References

• Vaughn, William (2000). Encyclopedia of Artists. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 0-19-521572-9. 
• Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4

Further reading

• Matossian, Nouritza. Black Angel, The Life of Arshile Gorky. Overlook Press, NY 2001

Nouritza Matossian (born 24 April 1945, Nicosia, Cyprus) is an Armenian writer, actress, broadcaster and human rights activist. ...

External links

• Artcyclopedia
• Peggy Guggenheim Collection
• artnet - Arshile Gorky Art Images
• Arshile Gorky Biography: Hollis Taggart Galleries