Arshile Gorky

Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky in December 1936
Born	Vostanik Manoug Adoian (1904-04-15)April 15, 1904 Khorgom, Vilayet of Van, Ottoman Empire
Died	July 21, 1948(1948-07-21) (aged 44) Sherman, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	Armenian American
Known for	Painting, Drawing
Notable work	Landscape in the Manner of Cézanne (1927) Nighttime, Enigma, Nostalgia (1930–1934)
Movement	Abstract Expressionism

Arshile Gorky (/ˌɑːrʃiːl ˈɡɔːrkiː/; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, Armenian: Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter, who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent most his life as a national of the United States. Along with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Gorky has been hailed as one of the most powerful American painters of the 20th century. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced in the Armenian Genocide.

Gorky was born on April 15, 1904, in the village of Khorgom, situated on the shores of Lake Van in the Ottoman Empire. In later years he was vague about his date of birth, changing it from year to year. In 1908 his father emigrated to America to avoid the draft, leaving his family behind in the town of Van.

In 1915, Gorky fled Lake Van 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. Arriving in America in 1920, the 16-year-old Gorky was reunited with his father, but they never grew close.

In the process of reinventing his identity, he changed his name to "Arshile Gorky", claiming to be a Georgian noble (taking the Georgian name Arshile/Archil), and even telling people he was a relative of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky.