Arshile Gorky (1904-19480

Arshile Gorky was an abstract expressionist who would not pursue surrealist ideas dogmatically though his breakthrough to abstraction paved the way for the abstract expressionism of Pollock and Rothko via his employment by the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts project in New York during the 1940s.
http://sites.moca.org/thecurve/2010/08/31/gorkys-agony/

 

 

Gorky would die of cancer after a long battle with depression in 1948.