WATERTOWN — Dr. Kim Servart Theriault will lecture on “Arshile Gorky: Between the Figural and Abstract” on Friday, September 18 at the Baikar Building in Watertown for the Tekeyan Cultural Association at 7 p.m.
It is well-known in the Armenian community that Arshile Gorky (born Vosdanig Adoian, 1904-48) painted in the United States from 1920-48 after he escaped the Armenian Genocide. Indeed, Gorky’s story exemplifies the dilemmas engendered by displacement, an immigrant’s search for identity in a new world, and the success of the artist as an individual and as an important bridge between European Modernism and Abstract Expressionism. This “New American Painting” became the first internationally significant American art movement, and one that and has been perpetually influential worldwide since the mid-twentieth century.
As Kim Theriault has discussed previously in her work, Gorky’s trajectory as a self-taught artist working his way through modern art’s progression and developing his own individual style, is a key part of his story, as is his Armenian background. Her presentation Friday builds upon that foundation by exploring the formal qualities of his art and the implications of his personal associations.
Often referred to as “an artist’s artist,” Gorky’s work was always founded in direct observation. Whether drawing an image of a fellow artist, family member, or friend, or abstracting the structures, forms, or outlines of a landscape, Gorky maintained an attachment to the figural and representational because he sought out, retained, or forged an emotional connection to the individuals, spaces, and places that he presented in his compositions, even if his creations were abstracted renditions.
The Lecturer
Kim Servart Theriault holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia and is Professor Emerita of Modernist and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.
