Arshile Gorky - Sherman, CT - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

“The stuff of thought is the seed of the artist. Dreams form the bristles of the artist's brush.”
- Arshile Gorky

Arshile Gorky (real name: Vostanik Manoug Adoian) was born in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire (in what is now Turkey). The year he was born is often cited as 1904 but it could have been 1902 or 1903 - no one knows for sure: his grave marker lists it as 1905. Regardless of the exact date, this was not a good time to be an Armenian in that part of the world. There had already been several mass slaughters of Armenians in the last part of the nineteenth century at the hands of the Ottomans, and with the onset of World War I, the Armenians faced mass execution, forced deportation and slave labor.

Gorky’s father fled to America in 1908, ostensibly to avoid the draft, leaving his family behind. They managed to escape the worst of the situation in 1915 by fleeing to a Russian-controlled area, however, his mother succumbed to starvation in 1919. Gorky himself managed to make it to America in 1920 at the approximate age of sixteen. And although he did find his estranged father, they never fully reconciled. It was at this time when he changed his name (and some aspects of his past) in an attempt to reinvent himself.

Arshile Gorky studied art and taught art, at first in Boston then in New York City where he eventually met and became friends with several influential artists such a Stuart Davis and Willem de Kooning. His own paintings progressed through several different styles being influenced by Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso. But it was his own distinct style of abstract impressionism that ultimately propelled him to the annals of art history. One of his paintings entitled “The Liver is the Cocks Comb,” a bizarre-looking work which is part of the collection of the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, NY, was included on a set of U.S. postage stamps issued in 2010 and commemorating Abstract Impressionists.

Practically from womb to tomb, Gorky’s life was marred by tragedy. Having experienced the ravages of World War I in his youth and the Great Depression in his thirties, he encountered a series of unfortunate events in his last years: A fire destroyed his studio and thirty of his paintings, his wife had an affair with one of his artist friends and eventually left him, and a cancer diagnosis led to a colostomy. On top of that, he was involved in a car accident that resulted in a broken neck and paralyzed arm. In 1948, while in his mid-forties, Arshile Gorky hung himself in his studio barn in Connecticut. On a wooden crate nearby, he had scrawled these words: ‘Goodbye my loveds.’
(Sources: wikipedia.com, arthistory.com.)

Description: Arshile Gorky’s grave is found in Sherman, CT’s North Cemetery. Date of birth: 04/15/1905 Date of death: 07/21/1948 Area of notoriety: Art Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: none Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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