Arshile Gorky (1904-1948)

“Certainly the mood is dark, but also peculiarly elated. I think this is because the lines keep moving, keep metamorphosizing into new shapes, becoming autonomous expressions. It is in the lines he uses to render his disturbing subject matter that he finds freedom from it. They are at once outlines or contours of objects, but also spontaneous movements, sometimes seemingly made by chance, and at other times, deliberate. But their mobility is irrepressible, like Gorky’s vision of his father’s garden.” (D. Kuspit , “Arshile Gorky in the Thirties,” in Arshile Gorky, Paintings and Drawings 1929-1942, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 1999).