Charred Beloved II

Gorky emigrated from a small Armenian village on the shores of Lake Van, then part of Turkey, to the United States in 1920. He became a pioneer of abstraction, combining Cubist and Surrealist influences in paintings that frequently made reference to his childhood. In January 1946 a fire destroyed the barn that Gorky used as a studio: "I was not able to save not a painting nor a drawing and all my books burned and turned to dust." In this canvas – which commemorates his loss – the sombre mood and dark colours of the organic forms refer to his burned paintings.