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 C, Joan Mir, 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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