Works of Seminal Modern Artist Arshile Gorky, at Phila. Museum of Art

by KYW's Karin Phillips

Arshile Gorky:  A Retrospective features paintings, sculpture, prints, and drawings of the not-so-well-known artist who was nevertheless one of the founding fathers of modern art. 

Michael Taylor is curator of modern art curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

"At a moment when American art transititioned into abstraction, we all think of abstract impressionism in Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning.  Gorky is a pivitol figure at that moment.

Taylor notes that Gorky died by suicide in 1948 so he wasn't around a few years later when American modernism exploded:

"He's always been seen as a bridge, and what do you do with a bridge? You pass over it.  So we're really trying to say that he's an artist worth looking at again.  I think his reputation is ripe for renewal."

The Gorky retrospective will be at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through January 10th, 2010.