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Arshile Gorky, one of the most intriguing figures in modern art, was at the center of the New York art world in the twenties, thirties, and forties. Yet he was never fully recognized as an important painter in his lifetime, and it was only after his death that his reputation soared. In this deeply felt and penetrating biography, Matthew Spender - himself a sculptor and the husband of Gorky's elder daughter - writes with sympathy and perception, and he gets to the heart of his elusive subject.
Born in Khorkom, a small Armenian village in eastern Turkey, Arshile Gorky grew up haunted by memories of his alternately idyllic and terrifying childhood: the scars of the 1896 Turkish massacres of his people; then the mass slaughter of 1915 from which his own family fled; the desertion of his father; the dominance of his headstrong and loving mother, who died of starvation after they found shelter in the Caucasus.
Making his way to the United States, the young Gorky determined against all odds to become a painter. He buried his past by assuming a new name and identity, and brazened his way into the art world. At once charming and peremptory, seemingly an extrovert but secretive at heart, he could both dazzle and alienate his art students (Rothko was one of his earliest), his fellow painters, and his young loves, as well his potential dealers and patrons.
His last years, dogged by tragedy and illness, threatened even the haven of his marriage and family, until finally, in 1948, he took his own life.
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1
From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky
March 23, 2001, University of California Press
Paperback
in English
- 1 edition
0520225481 9780520225480
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2
From a high place: a life of Arshile Gorky
2000, University of California Press
in English
0520225481 9780520225480
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3
From a high place: a life of Arshile Gorky
1999, Knopf, Distributed by Random House
in English
- 1st ed.
0375403787 9780375403781
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Book Details
First Sentence
"GORKY OFTEN TALKED about his childhood: the beautiful lake on whose banks his village used to stand, its poplar trees like sentinels, the distant mountains whose shoulders supported the sky."
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- Created April 29, 2008
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August 6, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 14, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the edition. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |