- Born
- Died
- Birth nameVosdanig Adoian
- Armenian painter and draftsman. Born in Khorkom Van, Hayotz Dzore, a village in now Turkish Armenia. Emigrated to the USA in 1920, lived first in Boston and studied at Rhode Island School of Design, Providence Technical High School and the New School of Design, Boston. Changed his name from Vosdanig Manoog Adoian to Arshile Gorky. Moved in 1925 to New York and studied and taught at Grand Central Art School 1925-31. Painted pictures strongly influenced by Picasso. Friendships 1929-34 with Stuart Davis and from c. 1933 with De Kooning. First one man exhibition at the Mellon Galleries, 1934 Philadelphia. Worked 1935-39 on the WPA Federal Art Project as a mural painter. Developed an increasingly personal style from 1941-2, with hybrid biomorphic imagery and a more fluid handling of paint. Spent much time in the countryside from 1942, especially at Sherman, Connecticut. Died by suicide at Sherman after a succession of misfortunes, including a fire in his studio and being severely injured in a car accident.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Mel Hakhnazarian
- SpouseAgnes Magruder(1941 - ?) (2 children)
- Children
- Pioneer of abstract expressionism and favorite painter of Mikhail Vartanov who shot films on his other 2 favorite Armenian painters: Carzou in 1984 and Minas in 1989 but not the Gorky film, as of yet.
- Father of painter Maro Gorky & Natasha Gorky.
- In 2015 a fountain monument commemorating Gorky was erected in Edremit, a town near his birthplace. After the town's People's Democracy Party administration was replaced by government appointees the water supply to the fountain was cut off, the taps were broken off, and signs with Gorky's biography in four languages - Armenian, Kurdish, English and Turkish - were removed from the monument.
- Fifteen of Gorky's paintings and drawings were destroyed in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1 in 1962.
- On July 21, 1948, after telling a neighbor and one of his students that he was going to kill himself, Gorky was found hanged in his barn studio. On a nearby wooden crate he had written "Goodbye My Loveds".
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