Arshile Gorky

Armenian American artist Arshile Gorky (c. 1904–48) made his first mature works in New York City in the mid-1920s, by which point the traumatic history of the 20th century had already made him a genocide survivor and an exile from his homeland. Channeling his study of the modern masters through his own painful experiences and poignant memories, in two decades Gorky produced a huge body of deeply personal, emotionally intense lyrical abstractions that had a huge influence on his contemporaries.
Arshile Gorky explores the strength of Gorky’s artistic voice throughout the stages of his remarkable, though tragically short, career. Featuring more than 80 paintings and works on paper drawn from public and private collections around the world, this volume presents a comprehensive retrospective survey of the artist’s work. New essays by curators Edith Devaney, Gabriella Belli and Saskia Spender, the artist’s granddaughter and President of the Arshile Gorky Foundation, explore the artist’s life, work and subsequent influence.
Tracing how Gorky interweaved motifs, references and painterly flourishes in paintings and elaborate works on paper, Arshile Gorky reveals the artist’s unique position as a bridge between Europe and America, between surrealism and abstract expressionism. He remained a pivotal figure after his untimely death, influencing many other artists; Willem de Kooning acknowledged Gorky as a “driving force” among his generation of painters.

Author of From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky, Matthew Spender presents a new expanded edition of his 2010 publication Arshile Gorky: Goats on the Roof, with never-before-published material, including diary entries and letters from the artist’s wife as well as additional contextual documents. Arshile Gorky is increasingly considered an important influence on the development of abstract expressionism. From Gorky’s turbulent childhood fleeing the Armenian genocide in Turkey, to his adulthood in the United States, to his suicide in his forties after a traumatic series of physical and emotional setbacks, this biography offers an intimate window into the artist’s life, telling his story through many voices: his letters, sent and received; the correspondence of family and friends; pivotal reviews and criticism; newspaper articles and other essential documents.

With new design integrating a fuller range of artwork and archival images, the book provides a more comprehensive portrait of Gorky, showing his struggle for recognition, his devotion to his family and his connection to his Armenian heritage. The artist’s life story unfolds through his personal letters, the correspondence between friends and family and key contemporary reviews.

Arshile Gorky (1904–48) immigrated from Ottoman Armenia to the US in 1920. After five years living under strained conditions with his family in Massachusetts, Gorky moved to New York and became absorbed into the cultural milieu of a city on the brink of modernism. From 1946, Gorky suffered a series of crises: his studio burned down, he underwent an operation for cancer and his wife had an affair with Roberto Matta. Gorky hanged himself in 1948, at the age of 44. He is buried in North Cemetery in Sherman, Connecticut.

Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943–47 is the first book to explore nature’s central role in establishing the singular voice of this truly pioneering figure in abstract expressionism. In the early 1940s, Gorky turned to nature as a primary subject matter, inspired by his summers spent in Connecticut and rural Virginia. The resulting works from this career-defining period, filled with a bold use of color, line and composition, and infused with an explosive expressive freedom, are some of the most evocative works of Gorky’s career. Featuring over 50 landscapes from this period, including paintings and works on paper, the book opens with a personal foreword from the artist’s granddaughter (and the show’s curator). The book continues with an essay from Edith Devaney, curator of the celebrated 2016 Abstract Expressionism show at the Royal Academy of Art in London, which traces the development of the Armenian-American artist’s passion and instinct for art along the arc of his career, highlighting key links to Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.