Festivals and Films

Arshile Gorky. A retrospective.

From 09 Feb 2010 to 02 May 2010

10 Feb-3 May 2010. Painting, drawings and a few sculptures by one of the most important artists of American Abstract Expressionism. Gorky, who was born in Armenia, fled persecution and arrived in the United States in the early 1920s, living first in Boston and then in New York.

His early work, which was mainly self-taught, was influenced by Cezanne and Picasso, but by the 1930s he was beginning to develop his own style. After various personal tragedies, cancer and a car accident he committed suicide in 1948 when he was only in his mid 40s. His early death has always left a question mark over how his work would have developed, but he is nevertheless considered one of the most important American painters of the second half of the 20th century, along with Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning.