Arshile Gorky

Tate Modern’s new exhibition Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective opens today (10 Feb). Richard Dorment, writing in the Telegraph, calls Gorky the ‘link between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expression. The passion, enigma and autobiographical dimension of his work would find their way into the art of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and, above all, Cy Twombly.’ An interview with his widow featured in last week’s Spectator and, although in her eighties, Mougouch recalled her life with the artist with extraordinary clarity (he was in his forties when he committed suicide in 1948). At the end of the exhibition there is a short film about Gorky by his granddaughter Cosima Spender, pointing out how his childhood in Armenia and his surroundings — there are shots of his New York studio and views of the Virginia countryside — had a major impact on his work; there are also filmed conversations with Mougouch, who is still very skilful at rolling her own cigarettes. The exhibition runs until 4 May.