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The art of slow nurturing; Maro Gorky

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  • The art of slow nurturing; Maro Gorky

    Los Angeles Times
    December 20, 2004 Monday
    Home Edition

    The art of slow nurturing;
    Maro Gorky, daughter of an influential painter, found a muse for her
    own work in her Tuscany garden.

    by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Special to The Times


    When you keep a guest room available for director Bernardo
    Bertolucci, you are bound to see yourself in his films sooner or
    later. So it was that Maro Gorky and Matthew Spender saw their
    artistic lives in Tuscany used as fictional backdrop for the 1996
    romantic coming-of-age film "Stealing Beauty."

    "It wasn't even our house," protests Gorky, who is seated on the
    damask sofa of Silva Bezdikian, an art dealer who is showing Gorky's
    paintings at her Beverly Hills home. Gorky's jewel- toned views of
    the Tuscan landscape are mounted on easels in the living room.
    Opening a book called "Tuscan Interiors," she turns to an 18th
    century stone hunting lodge that really is their home. "See? Our
    house is much prettier. I think the house is my installation. Matthew
    has a beautiful barn -- his cathedral to the arts. Also, we are much
    tidier than the people in the film."

    The film portrays a middle-aged couple thriving in idyllic
    surroundings with fresh, delicious food, diverting company and
    dedicated creative enterprise. It is an idealized view, of course,
    but still based on the truth of their remarkable lives. "In the
    morning, I do my gardening and in the afternoon, I paint and cook and
    make supper," says Gorky, 62. "Weekends or holidays, we have company.
    Otherwise, it is a lonely life in the most beautiful part of the
    world."

    Gorky and Spender moved to Avane, as their Tuscan home is called, in
    1968. They were members of the counterculture that fled London for a
    more rural existence. Just as important, they are children of famous
    parents, and they sought both geographical and emotional distance
    from their past.

    Abstract painter Arshile Gorky committed suicide in 1948 when his
    daughter Maro was just 5. Her memories of him are slim but potent and
    drove her commitment to become a painter, leading her to study with
    Frank Auerbach at the prestigious Slade School of Art in London,
    where she graduated in 1965.

    Her husband of 42 years, Matthew, is the son of the late English poet
    Stephen Spender. After reading history at Cambridge, Matthew pursued
    poetry but disliked living in the shadow of his legendary father so
    instead became a writer and sculptor. His carved-wood and stone
    figures populate the land around their Tuscan villa and were featured
    in the film.

    "Because we had complicated parents, our aim in life is a simple and
    quiet life in the country," Gorky says. Her round eyes and prominent
    features make her look as though she stepped out of one of her
    father's canvases. While living their rural lives, the couple had two
    daughters, Cosima and Saskia. As teenagers, those daughters decided
    country life was a bit too quiet. Cosima married Valerio Bonelli, who
    is now working as a production assistant on a film being made in Los
    Angeles. (Saskia married writer Carter Coleman.) Because Cosima and
    her young daughter were going to be spending many months in Los
    Angeles, Gorky saw this as an ideal time to show her abstract
    landscapes with Bezdikian.

    Bezdikian is Lebanese Armenian. Gorky, who usually exhibits at Long &
    Ryle gallery in London, finds it ironic to be sought out at least in
    part because of her Armenian roots. After moving to America in 1920,
    her father denied his origins, falsely claiming to be Russian and a
    nephew of the writer Maxim Gorky. Still, she was drawn to art by her
    heritage. "It was my father who made me a painter. Not by compulsion,
    of course, but by example," she says.

    A show of Arshile Gorky's works on paper and paintings is at Jack
    Rutberg Fine Arts on La Brea Avenue through Friday. The drawings were
    in the estate of Hans Burkhardt, an artist represented by the
    gallery. Spender, who wrote a book on Arshile Gorky, says: "The
    drawings have the sense of Gorky as a teacher. He taught Hans
    Burckhardt but also Mark Rothko. He was authoritarian .... This is an
    opportunity to see how helpful he was as a teacher."

    Maro Gorky adds: "My father's spirit is strong. His ghost makes
    itself felt. It is a privilege up to a point but also invidious
    comparison. People will look at what you do and say, 'Ah, but her
    father was so much better.' "

    Gorky finds her inspiration in the natural world. Of the 32 acres
    that they own, she cultivates a dozen. She is an avid gardener who
    dedicates each morning to pruning and caring for trees, vines and
    olives, not to mention the kitchen garden. Pulling her red shawl
    around her, she talks about the influence of such lush surroundings.

    "It is very important because you learn about the pruning of trees,
    and that affects the structure in the painting." Discussing her 2003
    painting "The Drive," she explains, "You can see a well-pruned
    mulberry and a climbing pink clematis. A pruned honeysuckle, cypress
    trees, lime trees and industrial vineyards around a blue drive. They
    are almost like aboriginal paintings, maps of what I see in front of
    me. I see things next to one another in spatial relationships." "

    *

    Maro Gorky

    Paintings by Gorky may be seen by appointment at SB Fine Art in
    Beverly Hills. Contact: (310) 276-7766 or www.sbfineartgallery.com

    "Arshile Gorky: The Early Years" is

    on view at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, 357 N. La Brea Ave., through
    Friday. Contact: (323) 938-5222 or www .jackrutbergfinearts.com
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