Arshile Gorky and his place in abstract expressionism

Born in 1902 in Van, Turkey and having lived in the United States from 1920 to 1948 until his death, Arshile Gorky has gone through a lot of tragedies in his short stay on earth. Passionate about arts and painting, he completed his studies in the States, where he also did teach. When he was only a student, he started to examine the art of the art of painting in museums and art galleries, and formulated his own style based on the works of both classis and modern artists. For years he copied the style of the more well-known artists of his time. He started to get more recognition with his murals he painted for the national art project that the US government commissioned in the 1930, after the Great Depression. During his life, he produced works of art that carried elements of impressionism, cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. In the 1940, he focused mostly on painting surrealist works, but his best works were the ones he had painted in plain nature. His deep relationship with nature took him to the lands he grew up in, revived his childhood memories, and thru these the artist combined the strength he took from his roots with his tragic experiences and realized his abstract expressionist works on ?life and death? that were pioneer of this movement.This paper aims to examine Arshile Gorky?s art and consists of 3 sections. The first section examines the abstract expressionist movement, the second, the artist?s life and his perception of art, and finally, his works in different periods of his life, their place within the abstract expressionist movement and his contribution to this movement. My aim in this thesis is to introduce this lesser known artist in Turkey to the Turkish art world in the best possible light.