The painter Arshile Gorky was born Vostanig Adolan in eastern Turkey. Raised in a poor Armenian farming family, Gorky's childhood was shaped by two disasters: the first being the massacres of 1896, the second was the genocide of 1915, that affected the entire Armenian population, and which claimed the life of Gorky's mother. Gorky was a seminal figure in the early years of the New York School and a largely self taught artist whose work combined both …showed first 75 words of 297 total…

…showed last 75 words of 297 total…ical dreamlike elements and sensuous one's, with elements found in the work of the abstract expressionists. Shading and most of the other conventional methods are all but absent, instead Gorky uses unconventional methods. Such as Gorky's use of delicate liner marks that not only evoke emotion, but also acts as an animated contour. Gorky applied transparent washes over the muted color, leaving visible both the tracks of his brush and large areas of the canvas.