Arshile Gorky

Arshile Gorky was an artist. A survivor of the Armenian Genocide (yes, I believe there was an Armenian Genocide), he escaped in 1915 into Russian territory with his Mother and sisters, where his Mother died of starvation 4 years later. The year of his birth is unknown but is thought to be between 1902-1905. In 1920, he came to America.

from the Wikipedia entry:

Gorky's contributions to American and world art are difficult to overestimate. His work as lyrical abstraction was a "new language". He "lit the way for two generations of American artists". The painterly spontaneity of mature works like "The Liver is the Cock's Comb" [shown above] "The Betrothal II", and "One Year the Milkweed" [shown below] immediately prefigured Abstract expressionism, and leaders in the New York School have acknowledged Gorky's considerable influence.

But his oeuvre is a phenomenal achievement in its own right, synthesizing Surrealism and the sensuous color and painterliness of the School of Paris with his own highly personal formal vocabulary. His paintings and drawings hang in every major American museum including the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (which maintains the Gorky Archive), and in many worldwide, including the Tate in London.

I learned about this artist from the Slow Art Day tumblr, where they promote participation in Slow Art Day. From the tumblr page:

One day each year – April 27 in 2013 – people all over the world visit local museums and galleries to look at art slowly. Participants look at five works of art for 10 minutes each and then meet together over lunch to talk about their experience. That’s it. Simple by design, the goal is to focus on the art and the art of seeing.

They have a Facebook page. The event sounds like great fun, and I plan on doing the "seeing" part. I don't know about anyone local who'll be doing this, so I may skip the discussion element.