Gorky, Arshile (redirected from Vosdanik Adoian)

Gorky, Arshile (är`shīl gôr`kē), c.1900–48, American painter, b. Armenia as Vosdanig Adoian. He escaped the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, emigrated to the United States in 1920, studied at Boston's New School of Design, and moved to New York City in 1925. An extraordinarily fluid draftsman inspired by Ingres, Picasso, and several other artists, Gorky developed a figurative style of great refinement. A more radical turn in his art was prompted by the spontaneous automatism found in surrealism and in the works of Miró and Matta. Gorky began (c.1940) to create abstractions consisting of involved, voluptuously organic shapes and glowing colors, all enveloped in an aura of mystery. In these works he became a pioneer in the development of abstract expressionism. His reputation had already been established when, after a series of personal and professional disasters, he committed suicide at the age of 44. Gorky is well represented in American collections, e. g., in New York City, Water of the Flowery Mill is in the Metropolitan Museum and there are works at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum.

Bibliography

See catalog by J. Levy (1966); biographies by D. Waldman (1987), M. Spender (1999), and H. Herrera (2003); H. Rosenberg, Arshile Gorky: The Man, the Time, the Idea (1962, repr. 1981); K. Mooradian, The Many Worlds of Arshile Gorky (1981); H. Rand, Arshile Gorky: The Implications of Symbols (1981); C. Zwerin, dir., Arshile Gorky (documentary film, 1982).

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Gorky, Arshile

 orig. Vosdanik Adoian

(born April 15, 1904, Khorkom, Van, Turkish Armenia—died July 21, 1948, Sherman, Conn., U.S.) Armenian-born U.S. painter. In 1920 he emigrated from Turkish Armenia to the U.S. In 1925, after study at the Rhode Island School of Design, he settled in New York City, where he studied and then taught at the Grand Central School of Art (1926–31). He sought to assimilate the aesthetic visions of Paul Cézanne, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso by painting in their styles until he encountered the émigré European Surrealists; he then developed his own style of abstraction featuring biomorphic forms that suggest plants or human viscera floating over a background of melting colours. After a series of personal calamities, he hanged himself. He is the most important direct link between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

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Gorky, Arshile (b. Vosdanig Manoog Adoian) (1904–48) painter; born in Khorkom Vari Haiyotz Dzur, Armenia. He emigrated to Rhode Island (1920), and settled in New York City (1924), then in Sherman, Connecticut (1945). He combined the abstract modernism of Europe and a form of organic surrealism. Influenced by Picasso, his most famous work is The Liver is the Cock's Comb (1944).