PHILADELPHIA TO HOST EXHIBITION OF ARSHILE GORKY’S PAINTINGS
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
24.08.2009 21:31 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Philadelphia Museum of Art has organized a traveling
exhibition displaying the works of Arshile Gorky, the founder of
Armenian abstract art. A Retrospective will premier at the Museum
and present 180 paintings, sculptures and works on paper reflecting
the full scope of Gorky’s prolific career.
The Retrospective is the first major exhibition of its type since 1981
and the first to benefit from the publication of three biographies
of the artist. This will be the first major museum exhibition to
highlight the artist’s Armenian heritage and examine the impact of
Gorky’s experience of the Armenian Genocide on his life and work.
Philadelphia exhibition titled "Arshile Gorky. Retrospective" will
be organized from October 21, 2009 till January 10, 2010. It will
then travel to Tate Modern, London (February 10 – May 3, 2010) and
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (June 6 – September 20,
2010) following its debut in Philadelphia.
Arshile Gorky (Vosdanig Adoian) was born in 1904 in the Western
Armenian village of Khork, near Lake Van. During the 1915 Armenian
Genocide, Turkish troops drove Gorky’s family and thousands of
others out of Van on a death march to the frontier of Caucasian
Armenia. Suffering from starvation in 1919, during a time of severe
deprivation for the Armenian refugees, Gorky’s mother died in his
arms. The artist later left for United States where he changed his
name to Arshile Gorky.