Arshile Gorky was called the last Surrealist and the first Abstract Expressionist, but his work belongs in neither category. A self-taught artist who studied and copied the Old Masters, he was a consummate draughtsman, continually pushing himself through experimentation. He left behind many great drawings and paintings—a testament to his unwavering tenacity despite his short, difficult life. He committed suicide when he was just 44.
Born at the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1904 on the shores of Lake Van, Gorky, an Armenian, lived a life of tragedy and triumph. Abandoned by his father when he was four, his mother died in his arms when he was 13, probably from starvation. She left behind four children who managed to escape the horrific Armenian genocide. Gorky arrived in the States in 1920 with one of his sisters, and in 1924 moved to New York to become “a great artist.”
His paintings from the mid to late twenties were dominated by echoes of Cézanne, whom he considered the greatest artist of all time. Often criticized for copying, Gorky taught himself to paint by doing just that. From Cezanne, he learned about space, form, and light; with Matisse, heavy outlines and costumed poses; stylized backgrounds from Gauguin; and cubist paintings by Picasso and Braque. During this time, he studied at the Grand Central School of Art. After only two years, because of his exceptional talent, he was made a teacher, and he taught there for the next six years.
In the early 1930s, Gorky restricted himself to drawing, exploring different ideas for later paintings. He drew inspiration from the Surrealists and then Ingres. He would scrape the layers of paint with a razor or sandpaper to produce smooth, porcelain-like surfaces similar to Ingres. Like many other artists during that time, he was poor and worked for the WPA, living on their meager payroll. He and de Kooning became friends and often visited each other’s studio. He never talked about his Armenian background, instead making up stories about his childhood.
While viewing the exhibition, “Arshile Gorky. New York City” at Hauser & Wirth, I was taken by his work from 1940 until his death, eight years later. Here, he has come into his own, and the beauty and power of the paintings is palpable. It was during this time that he allowed the Armenian world, as he said, “to flow out of my hands and mind… I am a part of it.” In this period, his work comes alive, as if his soul is no longer denied. There is still the experimentation, like with Drawing (1947), in which he worked the 40 x 51-inch paper with charcoal and graphite, then placed the paper in a bathtub and rubbed away parts of the drawing while it was wet. The scratches feel free and confident while retaining a subtle hush of greys, black and white, with a dash of red and hints of blue.
Since 1943, Gorky had been spending time in the countryside and being in nature brought back to mind the natural beauty of his childhood in Eastern Turkey. His wife, Agnes Magruder, said that “Gorky fell in love with the weeds. Especially milkweed. Nature was alive to him.” The work at this time feels lifted up, with more movement, air and light emanating from the canvas. In pastel on paper (1943), he uses pastels like paint, with dancing lines moving and looping across the paper. The work feels free. Loved. Untitled (Virginia Summer) (1946-47) was recently discovered under the painting The Limit (1947). Because it had been preserved, out of the light and touch for 75 years, the painting feels new, as if Gorky had just completed it. So, too, in Untitled (1947-48); its thin strokes travel, then swirl thick, delicate and emotional—1947 was his most prolific painting year.
Unfortunately, during this time, he discovers he has cancer. He retreats into himself and drinks too much because, as his wife recounted, “He was in so much pain. He had no self-control.” After he has an operation for the cancer, he’s not able to paint again. The final blow is a car crash where he breaks his neck and painting arm. His wife leaves him, taking away his two beloved daughters. A week later, he hangs himself.
Gorky’s granddaughter, Saskia Spender, has been the President of The Arshile Gorky Foundation since 2015. The Foundation was established in 2005 by the artist’s widow, Mougouch Fielding (Agnes Magruder Gorky, 1921-2013). In answer to my questions, Saskia said this about Gorky’s wife, whom everyone called Mougouch: “I knew Mougouch very well. I was her first grandchild, and she was still in her forties when I was born. A fascinating, spirited woman; stylish, physically active, daring, and a beauty. She pulled off a lot of contradictions with her style. She believed in jealousy, felt it, enjoyed it, fomented it, regretted it and couldn’t help it. It was the key of her life. She was 19 when they met. He was twice her age. Until she was 90, Mougouch thought Gorky’s career began with her and that his life ended when she walked out on him. In reality, he was terminally ill with cancer and had likely driven her away in order to summon the necessary rage to kill himself.”
I asked how she felt about Gorky’s work, having spent so much time with it. “He lived through the very worst and possibly the best of humanity who could transmit that in pen and ink, with line, color, composition,” she told me. “His subjects were human, arboreal, and conceptual all at once. His entire experience in life was expressed without a single word. This is why we cry before a Gorky painting. We are overwhelmed with emotions. There is the marvel, the wonder, so primeval, so not-modern about looking at Gorky, which we recognize as pleasure. There is a radical conceptual mystery that is so contemporary. His work looks like it was executed yesterday, not a hundred years ago.”
The exhibition at Hauser & Wirth on Wooster Street, which closes this week, is an excellent opportunity to absorb a great artist who, through much pain and suffering, finally came into his own at 40, with only four years left to paint. As if he knew. In this show, we can see his progression, starting with his early work in 1931, all the way to his 1947 The Limit, which had been taped under an earlier painting. Both paintings are on view, one old and one as if brand new, astounding in their emotional intensity and eloquence. Walking through the streets of New York, Gorky once observed, “Fire hydrants are like cathedrals, more beautiful than anything made by man.” His was a unique way of seeing.
