Pitman, A;
(2013)
Trauma, bereavement and the creative process: Arshile Gorky's The Artist and His Mother.
Advances in Psychiatric Treatment
, 19
(5)
366 - 369.
10.1192/apt.bp.112.010850.
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Abstract
The artist Arshile Gorky played a central role in the development of Abstract Expressionism during the 1940s. Born in Armenia, his early figurative works recall a childhood of persecution by Ottoman Turks, a period during which he suffered a number of significant losses. The painting The Artist and His Mother (c. 1926–1936) is based on a photograph showing the 7-year-old Gorky with his mother, 7 years before she starved to death during the Armenian Genocide. This article explores the early experiences that haunt this painting and the difficulties Gorky struggled with during his adult life as an immigrant to the USA – factors that contribute to an understanding of his suicide in 1948.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Trauma, bereavement and the creative process: Arshile Gorky's The Artist and His Mother |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1192/apt.bp.112.010850 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/apt.bp.112.010850 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open-access article published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Figures 1 and 2 fall outwith this license. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1430373 |
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