marriage

profile The Betrothal II (c. 1947; The Whitney Museum of American Art)

profile The Betrothal (c. 1947; Yale University Art Gallery) This series was painted just a year before Gorky’s death. Devastating depictions of marriage combine abstraction with the erotic, melding the psychotic with symbolism. No doubt the unraveling of his marriage in his final years played a role in the images Gorky created.