artist profile

1
artist profile

• arshile gorky

2
america after the war

• after WWII, american art came into its own for
  the first time. new york city had replaced paris
  as the art capital of the world as many european
  artists (who had escaped from hitlers third
  reich in coming to America) were on the rise.
  such artists included joseph albers, hans
  hofmann, andré brenton, max ernst, roberto matta,
  fernand léger, and piet mondrian. american
  artists such as willem de kooning, arshile gorky,
  and mark rothko were soon easily influenced by
  these revolutionary cubist and surrealist
  thinkers. their ideas eventually resulted in the
  abstract expressionist movement. the abstract
  expressionists were also known as the action
  painters. another factor that contributed to
  the rise of american art was roosevelts new deal
  that promoted the wpa (an artists program that
  provided work for artists during the depression).

3
background

• born in armenia in 1904 and coming to america in
  1920, arshile gorky was somewhat of a bridge
  between european and american art. gorky had had
  no formal training in the world of art, but
  rather studied art independently through
  observing other artists, such as picasso,
  cézanne, and fellow artists kandinsky, miro, and
  matta. his own artistic styles began to develop
  as the 1940s approached.

4
..

• gorky was heavily influenced by the surrealist
  ideas and the cubist composition, especially
  automatism. automatism was the idea that one was
  creating with the unconscious, rather than the
  conscious (a theory defined by andré brenton in
  the first surrealist manifesto in 1924). brenton
  had written that creating with the unconscious
  was the real and pure expression of the mind,
  rather than the aesthetic and moral
  preoccupations one might be more accustomed to.
  this idea also influenced a variety of other
  abstract expressionists such as jackson pollock.
  furthermore, the surrealist idea of biomorphism
  also influenced gorky. paintings with such a
  concept incorporated into them meant that forms
  would be somewhat abstracted and with a more
  simplified and organic shape.

5
..

• gorky was not only a excellent draftsman as he
  did most of his paintings from drawings, but also
  a unique and colorful thinker. he would
  incorporate his own psychology into a landscapea
  painterly painter he was called. his paintings
  were more concerned with shape and mass than
  line. his forms were less outlined and more
  flowing as forms loosely came into one another.
  it was described as lyrical abstraction. his
  delicacy of expression produced a kind of musical
  and poetic element of emotion. in addition,
  there was an erotic manner to his work (influence
  of freuds ideas) in which the conscious was
  represented. this trait was noticeable in all
  surrealists and particularly liberating for gorky
  as he felt the need to express deep emotion in
  his work. however, this need was often
  attributed to his eccentric behavior and
  melodramatic tendencies.

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his later years(1945-1948)

• at the height of gorkys career a fire consumed
  him, destroying much of his newest and greatest
  works. he was not only diagnosed with cancer,
  but also suffered from a broken neck and a
  failing marriage. he committed suicide in 1948
  leaving traces of pain in his final paintings
  with distorted and tortured forms.

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final note

• though arshile gorkys work is not the most well
  known under the abstract expressionist movement,
  it is, however, historically documented as being
  the bridge between european abstraction and
  american painting for the 1940s and 50s. it is
  also of the highest quality work for its time.
  it conveys a raw sense of the human spirit and
  expresses a stroke of intimacy within him. a
  fine painter was arshile gorky.