Ron Gorchov, Painter With Curved Canvases, Dies At Age 90

Ron Gorchov at his Brooklyn Studio. Photo by Brian Buckley, 2012.

Ron Gorchov, the artist famous for his curved, saddle-shaped canvases, died on Tuesday at the age of 90.

Gorchov’s death was announced by Cheim and Reid Gallery of New York, which had co-represented him. Ron Gorchov was most famous for his curved canvases that almost made them a sculpture in their own right. These saddle-type canvases were sometimes stacked across the wall. Gorchov used to staple linen to the frames and painted them white, followed by layers of several colours. The end result didn’t hide the staples and left underlying colours exposed – but Gorchov preferred this ‘clumsy’ style. He said in a 2013 interview that he didn’t seek perfection; he liked the illusion of perfection.

The painter Ron Gorchov, known for his distinctively curved canvases, has died at 90.

Ron Gorchov at his Brooklyn Studio. Photo by Brian Buckley, 2012.

The painter Ron Gorchov, best known for his vividly-painted and distinctly-shaped canvases, died on Tuesday. News of his death was announced by Cheim & Read, which represents the artist in New York. He was 90 years old.

Gorchov was born in 1930 in Chicago, and began studying art at the age of 14, when he took Saturday classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1953, he moved to New York, where he became acquainted with acolytes of the New York School, including Mark Rothko and John Graham, among others. Gorchov supported his wife and son by working as a lifeguard until his breakout in 1960, when he was featured in a group show at the Whitney Museum and had his first solo exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery.

While his self-described “abstract surrealist” style was indebted to the Abstract Expressionist titans of the day, Gorchov is perhaps most famous for his experiments with canvas. In 1967, after a brief hiatus from painting, Gorchov created what would become his signature bowed-frame canvas for the first time in Rothko’s studio. The concave works, which resemble shields or saddles, were made by stapling linen or canvas to a bent wooden frame, which Gorchov would then paint with pared down forms rendered in thin, vivid pigments reminiscent of Henri Matisse. The works walk the line between sculpture and painting, and placed Gorchov among the ranks of artists experimenting with shaped canvases, including Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle, and Blinky Palermo.

Gorchov largely stayed in this mode throughout his career, and in 1975 his dedication to abstract experimentation landed him a solo exhibition at Fischbach Gallery as well as a spot in that year’s Whitney Biennial. The following year, he participated in “Rooms,” the legendary first exhibition at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1).