artnet – American Artist Ron Gorchov, Who Rejected Trends to Forge His Own Path Through Painting, Has Died at 90

Artist Ron Gorchov, whose idiosyncratic paintings found admirers in the 1970s, but who fell out of favor for almost two decades before eager new audiences flocked to his work in the 2000s, died on Tuesday in New York. He was 90.

The artist, best known for his biomorphic abstractions, which he painted on casually assembled shield-shaped canvases, was an early critic of the idea that painting was dead, as many of the artists of his generation believed.

Alongside artists including Richard Tuttle and Blinky Palermo, Gorchov made a smaller claim: that painting could go on if artists gave up their Modernist attempts at grand gestures, and focused instead on making smaller, quieter, more personal expressions.

Gorchov was born in Chicago in 1930. At 14 years old, he began taking classes—along with older students who were benefiting from the GI Bill—at the Art Institute of Chicago.

He briefly attended the University of Mississippi, where he said he once fished with novelist William Faulkner, before returning to his hometown and finishing his studies. In 1953, along with his son, Michael, and his wife, Joy, he moved to New York in search of new opportunities.

In an apartment on 8th Street, across the street from the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Gorchov raised his family and painted at night while working as a lifeguard, initially at Coney Island.

“But somehow we had time for everything,” he recalled in a 2006 interview with the Brooklyn Rail. “We had parties with friends. Took Michael everywhere. Joy had a piano and singing coaches and studied acting. I could see all the shows in one afternoon, after midnight talk to artists in bars, then paint all night and sleep three hours in the morning. It was exciting and we didn’t want to miss out on anything.”

In 1960, he landed his first solo show at Tibor de Nagy gallery, which caught the attention of critic Dore Ashton. In her generally favorable New York Times review, she expressed hope that Gorchov’s talent would not be “drowned in the brouhaha” of chatter that accompanied the feverish search for new talent.