Arshile Gorky
dal 20/3/2002 al 27/4/2002
Segnalato da
20/3/2002
Arshile Gorky
Gagosian Gallery - Madison Ave, New York
Portraits. One of the most influential of a generation of artists that changed the history of American Art, Gorky is most well known for his work that fused American Abstraction with European Surrealism. This exhibition will present a much more personal side of the artist’s oeuvre: paintings and drawings of friends, family and the artist himself.
"Vartoosh dear, my Armenian portraits you understand well, I am sure.
For eyes are the soul of portraiture, the prime communication between
artist and those who view his work."
Arshile Gorky to his sister Vartoosh, October 11, 1946
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce the first exhibition devoted to
the portraits of Arshile Gorky. One of the most influential of a generation
of artists that changed the history of American Art, Gorky is most well
known for his work that fused American Abstraction with European
Surrealism. This exhibition will present a much more personal side of
the artist’s oeuvre: paintings and drawings of friends, family and the
artist himself.
While there is not one style that encapsulates all of the works, they
incorporate the influences of the masters of Fayum, Ingres, Cézanne
and Picasso. However, most evident in all of the paintings is an
archetypal portrait type, more specifically an idealized Armenian figure.
Many of these paintings were not originally intended for public exhibition
and they were painted and repainted over a series of years. In this
sense, they served as mementos, not only of the present but also of
Gorky’s lost childhood and homeland. This is most strikingly realized in
the series of works devoted to a photograph of the artist and his mother
taken in 1912. It is a subject that Gorky returned to frequently, producing
many drawings and two stunning paintings that will be on loan to the
exhibition from the National Gallery of Art and the Whitney Museum of
American Art.
A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition with an essay
by David Anfam and an introduction by Matthew Spender.
Image: Arshile Gorky, Portrait of the Artist and His Mother, 1926-1936 Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 inches (152.3 x 127 cm) Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington
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