Armenian by birth, Abstract Expressionist by association, and a thorough artistic chameleon, Arshile Gorky spun through a range of styles from Cezannism to the Surrealism. His finest works are often meditations on the pain of losing his family to the Armenian genocide in 1915, among other disasters visited upon him later in life. Though his life was certainly an unhappy one, his paintings express a lyrical poetry to mid-century abstraction, influencing a generation.