Corinne Michelle West (1908–1991) was an
American painter; she also used the names Mikael and Michael West.She
was an Abstract Expressionist.West was born in Ohio. She attended the
Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before moving to the Cincinnati Art
Academy in 1925.She moved to New York in 1932. She was Arshile Gorky's
muse and probably his lover, although she refused to marry him when he
proposed several times.She graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy in
1930. After graduating and leaving the teachings of Hofmann, in 1934,
West began studying under Raphael Soyer.In 1936 she had her first solo
exhibition, at the Rochester Art Club; Also in 1936, she had begun to go
by Mikael to obtain better opportunities, and after Arshile Gorky told
her that the name "Corinne" sounded like that of a "debutante's
daughter." Gorky suggestion however, is based on a real prejudice
against women in the art world, such as with George Sand and George
Elliot.In 1941 she began to use the name Michael, which she used in her
regular life as well as her painting.She exhibited in Manhattan's
prestigious Stable Gallery in 1953, and had a solo show in 1957 at the
Uptown Gallery in New York City. In 1958 she had a one-woman show at the
Domino Gallery in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.She also wrote poems; she
wrote a series of 50 poems in the 1940s, including the poem The New Art
in 1942. Later in 1968 she created a series of poem-paintings related
to the Vietnam war.She was married briefly to Randolph Nelson in the
1930s, and in 1948 she married filmmaker Francis Lee, but they divorced
in 1960.
The first major West Coast exhibit of her work was held
posthumously at Art Resource Group's Newport Beach, California gallery
in 2010.Wikipedia
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