LEFT Arshile Gorky, The Artist and his Mother, c.1926–’36, oil on canvas, 152.4x127cm


Man of mystery I


Arshile Gorky was a celebrated 20th-century abstract painter but the true story of his life and art


has only emerged thanks to a new BBC documentary – filmed by his granddaughter WORDS: MARTHA ALEXANDER


n order to unravel the mysteries of a painter who was a key figure in the modern art movement, Arshile Gorky’s granddaughter Cosima Spender set about making a film about his life, death and the effects his suicide had on the family he left


behind. Her aim was to show how his art played an intrinsic role in his tragic tale. Showing on BBC4’s Storyville strand this month,


Without Gorky tells the full story of the enigmatic artist. Fresh interviews are interspersed with photographs,


24 Artists & Illustrators


paintings and footage of the family visiting Arshile’s birthplace in Armenia and his Connecticut house in which his daughters were raised. “What I tried to do was really put a lot of the art back into the emotional context of the family,” says Cosima. “I wanted to put his paintings into the story, and place them with what he was going through.” Born sometime between 1902 and 1905, Arshile was


a refugee from Armenia who witnessed the genocide as a child in 1915. He moved to America where he changed


© 2010 THE ARSHILE GORKY FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK


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