Arshile Gorky: Selections from the Private Collection of Gerard L. Cafesjian

November 09, 2009 – August 02, 2010 On November 9, 2009, the newly-opened Cafesjian Center for the Arts presented "Arshile Gorky: Selections from the Private Collection of Gerard L. Cafesjian" exhibition. For the first time the works of famous American painter of Armenian descent were presented in Armenia. 

An Armenian immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1920 at the age of 15, Arshile Gorky was once called a “hero of Abstract Expressionism.” Unlike his contemporaries, Gorky possessed a demanding, methodical approach to the earliest stages of a work’s formation. The many preliminary drawings and oil sketches in this exhibition—all from the Gerard L. Cafesjian Collection—provide unparalleled insight into this neglected area of Gorky’s working method. Emphasizing the preparatory stages of a work’s evolution, he resisted the subconscious flow of ideas and subscribed to a more traditional and disciplined regimen. Executing a large number of sketches that were continuously reworked and rearranged, Gorky rendered complex, large-scale compositions of cohesive design and universal theme that continue to be viewed as some of the finest examples of American art at mid-century.