“Among the world-famous figures of Armenian culture in the West, such as Aram Khachatryan, Charles Aznavour, Atom Egoyan, the most recognized is the American-Armenian artist Arshile Gorky.” With these words, on May 2, at the National Library of A rmenia, Movses Herkelian, a famous Lebanese-Armenian intellectual and candidate of art history, began a public lecture dedicated to Arshile Gorky.

Introducing the guest of the National Library, the head of the library’s public relations department, Nerses Hayrapetyan, noted that the National Library was hosting Mr. Gerkelian for the second time. Last year he gave a lecture “Aivazovsky and the Turks” at the library.

Herkelian donated valuable literature to the library. He also transfers to the library the right to digitize books published by him and freely use them in book depositories in Armenia. Movses Herkelyan presented the history of Arshile Gorky’s family, the path of migration from Western to Eastern Armenia, and emigration to the USA. The artist's whole life was difficult until the tragic end. The speaker noted that since the 1980s, Arshile Gorky's paintings have become increasingly competitive every year at international auctions for museums and individual collectors. No other work by an Armenian artist has ever sold at such a high price as Arshile Gorky's paintings. Unfortunately, his work is still unknown to Armenian society. Movses Herkelyan also spoke about individual works and painting series of the artist. The conversation then continued in question-and-answer format.