From a High Place (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Matthew Spender
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1895-1948
- Setting: Eastern Turkey; Armenia; Watertown, Massachusetts; New York City; Virginia; and Connecticut
- Principal Characters: Arshile Gorky (Vostanig Adoian), Shushan Adoian (Shushan der Marderosian), Agnes Magruder (“Mougouch”), Maro Gorky, André Breton, Jeanne Reynal
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Virginia, Northeast, U.S., Twentieth century, Nineteenth century, New York City, Art or artists, New England, Connecticut, Painting or painters, Turkey or Turkish people, Armenia or Armenians, Genocide
- Locales: Virginia, New York, NY, Connecticut, Turkey, Armenia, Watertown, MA
Matthew Spender, who married Arshile Gorky’s older daughter, Maro, has followed the advice of art historian Giorgio Vasari in trying to give “a vision of the artist’s early life and the confraternity among which he lived.” In Gorky’s case this meant capturing the life a hundred years ago in the tiny Armenian villages near Lake Van in Turkey and the ordeal of the Armenians who fled to Yerevan in the new Armenia. Gorky was born in Khorkom, on the coast of Lake Van near the monastery of Charahan Surp Nishan, where his mother, Shushan der Marderosian, was born. Gorky’s father,...
[The entire page is 2057 words long]
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