Arshile Gorky (pronounced /ˌɑrʃil ˈgɔrki/, born Vostanik Manoog Adoyan; Armenian: Արշիլ Գորկի, Վոստանիկ Մանուկ Ադոյան), (April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism.
Gorky was born in the village of Khorgom, situated on the shores of Lake Van. It is not known exactly when he was born: it was sometime between 1902 and 1905. (In later years Gorky was vague about even th...
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Arshile Gorky (pronounced /ˌɑrʃil ˈgɔrki/, born Vostanik Manoog Adoyan; Armenian: Արշիլ Գորկի, Վոստանիկ Մանուկ Ադոյան), (April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism.
Gorky was born in the village of Khorgom, situated on the shores of Lake Van. It is not known exactly when he was born: it was sometime between 1902 and 1905. (In later years Gorky was vague about even the date of his birth, changing it from year to year.) In 1910 his father emigrated to America to avoid the draft, leaving his family behind in the town of Van.
Gorky fled Van in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide and escaped with his mother and his three sisters into Russian-controlled territory. In the aftermath of the genocide, Gorky's mother died of starvation in Yerevan in 1919. Gorky was reunited with his father when he arrived in America in 1920, aged 16, but they never grew close. At age 31, Gorky married. He changed his name to Arshile...
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