PRESS REVIEWS: Black Angel, A life of Arshile Gorky, Nouritza Matossian Chatto & Windus, Random House, UK.
New York Review of Books, March 09 2000,
Review of Black Angel in The Washington Times April 30, 2000
Review of Black Angel in The Art Newspaper
Review
of Black Angel in The Economist
Review of Black Angel in The Times
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a Transcript of BBC Radio 3 Interview of Nouritza Matossian
"A profoundly moving, illuminating
biography. Her visceral prose conveys the magical otherworldly aura of the
village of Van where he grew up. Her book leaves us with the image of a man
of monumental will and spirit, who embraced life with every fibre, and whose
sufferings never undermined his integrity etiher as a man or as an artist."
The Independent
Robert Hughes wrote in the Shock of the New; "Gorky's life as a mature artist
formed a kind of Bridge of Sighs between Surrealism and America; he was the
last major painter Breton claimed for Surrealism and the first Abstract Expressionist
as well." In this first full-scale biography of Arshile Gorky, Nouritza Matossian
charts the artist's tumultuous life from his childhood to his evolution into
a key figure on the New York art scene of the 20s, 30s nd 40s to his last
tragic years.
In Black Angel Nouritza Matossian uses for the first time Gorky's original
letters in Armenian and interviews with his surviving relatives and friends
and makes startling discoveries, writing with authority and insight about
the powerful influence Gorky's Armenian heritage has upon his painting. She
also provides an informed and important critique of the entire body of Gorky's
major work.
Arshile Gorky is one of the most mysterious 20th century artists. Born in
Armenia as Manoug Adoian, he survived the Genocide by Ottoman Turkey begun
in 1915 and changed his name- and intimated that he was related to the famous
writer- soon after his arrival in America in 1920. Handsome and deeply intense
about his art, Gorky cut a dramatic figure among Abstract Expressionists,
influencing a generation of painters who saw Gorky as their dark and disturbed
angel, inclduing de Kooning, Rothko and Pollock. In his later years, as he
lost his family, lost his strudio to a disastrous fire, braved cancer and
received a devastating spinal injury, Gorky suffered heroically until he could
endure no more, and he finally committed suicide by hanging at the age of
46. This "rare alchemy of scholarship, personal reflection and historical
testimony" as Atom Egoyan writes, sheds crucial new light on Gorky's passionate
life and monumental legacy, "Gorky appears in my next film inspired by Nouritza
Matossian's book."
"A major biography which breaks new ground. Compulsive narrative . . . like
a love affair between biographer and subject."
The Times
Vivid, eloquent biography that animates the astonishing drama and tragedy
of the Armenian artist's life and career. A poignant and noble interpretation.
James Malpas, Sotheby's Institute, International Art Newspaper Matossian speaks
Armenian and actually undertook the dangerous journey to his village and interviewed
Gorky's surviving relatives in Erevan. Sexier . . . adds to the authenticity
and vitality of Matossian's account.
Richard Dorment, New York Review of Books
Nouritza
Matossian's invaluable biography paintsakingly charts Gorky's life from his
real childhood onwards, and reveals how he became a great painter of memory
and loss.
Paul Bailey, The Royal Academy Magazine
Rich. Sympathetic. Shattering.
Arthur C. Danto TLS
Black Angel has an infectious Gorkyesque myth making to it that takes him
back to the land and people he fled.
The Economist
Editor's Choice: The Best in Books and Web Resources
ArtSite Guide July, 2000
The saddest book about a great
artist you are likely to read. It took an Armenian-American author to follow
Manoug Adoian (Gorky's real name) and his story back to the shores of Lake
Van, in Armenia, and discover how his childhood memories were later unlocked
in his paintings. The author located and interviewed Gorky's widow, and numerous
relatives, and also discovered how one relative had forged some early Gorky
correspondence. How this charming man, who like Picasso, lied when he needed
to, bridged to distance from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism before his
early death is a compelling, American story.
I thoroughly enjoyed your life of Gorky - I finished reading it on a recent Irish holiday; A wonderful achievement, as well as a depth of research that was quite awesome. Thank you for the gift of the book.
Letter from Robert Fisk, The Independent
A rich biography; a sympathetic book. It is Matossian's thesis that Gorky's Virginia summer connected the artist to his Armenian childhood, "Gorky was painting his interior Armenia".
Her reconstruction of the New York art world of Gorky's time is as informative as the picture she paints of Gorky's corner of Armenia, before the First World War. Her narrative of the suffering of Gorky and his family on the hunger march which led to his mother's death - is as shattering as her account of Gorky's personal agony at the end of his life. Beyond that, the book helps one to focus on Gorky as an artist. And it makes room for the kind of interpretation Matossian advances.
Arthur C. Danto, Times Literary Supplement. 22 January 1999
The events of 1915 are part of a folk-memory uneasily scattered across the world and this remarkable book is as much an account of Nouritza Matossian's engagement with her people as it is a biography of Arshile Gorky. It is the story of a poignant diaspora, a circumstance which has lent Matossian fluency in no less than nine languages. If something of his nation and its extraordinary culture died with him 50 years ago, it is alive again in this remarkable book.
Brian Morton, Scotland on Sunday. 3 january 1999
Matossian's portrayal of the artistic development and influence of a painter remembered by art history as the link between European Surrealist painters and the Abstract Expressionist movement in America is thoroughly researched. But where her particular talent lies is in her perception that the key to Gorky's work rests in Armenian history.
Matossian's portrayal of the artistic development and influence of a painter remembered by art history as the link between European Surrealist painters and the Abstract Expressionist movement in America is thoroughly researched. But where her particular talent lies is in her perception that the key to Gorky's work rests in Armenian history.
Readers will be swept along by a compulsive narrative and charmed to find something so like a love affair between biographer and subject revealed. One is almost unsurprised, turning to the author's photograph, to find that Matossian bears a striking resemblance to the lost mother with whom Gorky felt such a profound connection.
Rachel Campell-Johnston The Times 31 December 1998
Nouritza Matossian has written a profoundly moving, illuminating biography of the painter she spent 15 years researching. She is the only biographer of Gorky's who has had intimate access to his relatives and culture, having undertaken a pilgrimage to the site of his birthplace, now in present day Eastern Turkey.
Her visceral prose conveys the magical, otherworldly aura of the village of Van where he grew up. She provides an intricate historical framework for the circumstances of his early life and genocide.
Despite the darkness of Gorky's life Matossian's account is paradoxically enlivening as she tells his story with an almost novelistic intensity. Her book finally leaves us with the image of a man of monumental will and spirit, who embraced life with every fibre, and whose sufferings never undermined his integrity as a man or as an artist.
Baret Magarian The Independent. 22 December 1998
A profoundly moving, illuminating biography of the painter of 15 years research. Visceral prose. Magical. Otherworldly . Novelistic intensity.
INDEPENDENT
Readers will be swept along by a compulsive narrative. A love affair between biographer and subject. A link between European Surrealist painters and the Abstract Expressionist movement in America is thoroughly researched.
TIMES
A rich biography; a sympathetic book. Informative. Shattering. Helps one to focus on Gorky as an artist. Her reconstruction of the New York art world of Gorky's time is as informative as the picture she paints of Gorky's corner of Armenia, before the First World War.
TLS
The story of a poignant diaspora. If something of his nation and its extraordinary culture died with him 50 years ago, it is alive again in this remarkable book.
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
She traces Gorky's works not only to the rugged beauty of Van's mountains but to colourful Armenian manuscript painting and the abstract forms in rugs that he would have seen as a boy. Her title plays on a fearsome Armenian tale that white angels went to heaven and black angels went to hell: a grim prospect for the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy, and, as things turned out, a fateful one. The word gorki means bitter in Russian and bitter his life was, both at its beginning and at its end."Black Angel" has an infectious Gorkyesque myth making to it that takes him back to the land and people he fled.
THE ECONOMIST
This extraordinary book passionately lays bare the tortured soul of one of this century's great artists Arshile Gorky. Tracing his childhood in western Armenia through to his flight to America, Nouritza Matossian vividly explores the sources of Gorky's unique genius.
Atom Egoyan, Director, The Sweet Hereafter