Arshile Gorky, one of the most intriguing figures in modern art, was at the center of the New York art world in the twenties, thirties, and forties. Yet he was never fully recognized as an important painter in his lifetime, and it was only after his death that his reputation soared. In this deeply felt and penetrating biography, Matthew Spender - himself a sculptor and the husband of Gorky's elder daughter - writes with sympathy and perception, and he gets to the heart of his elusive subject.
Born in Khorkom, a small Armenian village in eastern Turkey, Arshile Gorky grew up haunted by memories of his alternately idyllic and terrifying childhood: the scars of the 1896 Turkish massacres of his people; then the mass slaughter of 1915 from which his own family fled; the desertion of his father; the dominance of his headstrong and loving mother, who died of starvation after they found shelter in the Caucasus.
Making his way to the United States, the young Gorky determined against all odds to become a painter. He buried his past by assuming a new name and identity, and brazened his way into the art world. At once charming and peremptory, seemingly an extrovert but secretive at heart, he could both dazzle and alienate his art students (Rothko was one of his earliest), his fellow painters, and his young loves, as well his potential dealers and patrons.
His last years, dogged by tragedy and illness, threatened even the haven of his marriage and family, until finally, in 1948, he took his own life.

Matthew Spender

United States, United States of America

Berkeley, ©1999 (2000 printing)

First, First Edition, PS, 2001

Berkeley, California, 2000

1 edition, March 23, 2001

Berkeley, 2000], ©1999

Originally published: New York : Knopf, c1999.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 377-400) and index.

<p>An immigrant from a small Armenian village in eastern Turkey, Arshile Gorky (c. 1900-1948) made his way to the U.S. to become a painter in 1920. Having grown up haunted by memories of his alternately idyllic and terrifying childhood—his family fled the Turks' genocide of Armenians in 1915—he changed his name and created a new identity for himself in America. As an artist, Gorky bridged the generation of the surrealists and that of the abstract expressionists and was a very influential figure among the latter. His work was an inspiration to Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, among others. Matthew Spender illuminates this world as he tells the story of Gorky's life and career.</p>

Originally published: New York : Knopf, ©1999
Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-400) and index
Khorkom -- Van City -- Yerevan -- Watertown -- Sullivan Street -- Union Square -- The public works of art project -- The federal art project -- The Newark Airport murals -- Old and new paths -- The World's Fair -- War -- San Francisco -- A change of direction -- Crooked run -- Surrealists in New York -- A second summer at Crooked Run -- Roxbury -- Two disasters -- Union Square -- Sherman -- Last six weeks

GORKY OFTEN TALKED about his childhood: the beautiful lake on whose banks his village used to stand, its poplar trees like sentinels, the distant mountains whose shoulders supported the sky.

2023-06-28