Arshile Gorky: Horizon West (2026), 24 min
Directed by Cosima Spender
Edited by Valerio Bonelli
Produced by Peacock Pictures Ltd and the Arshile Gorky Foundation

Produced on the occasion of “Arshile Gorky. Horizon West," Hauser & Wirth, West Hollywood, February 21–April 25, 2026, the documentary explores the origins and development of Arshile Gorky’s abstract landscapes. Directed by the artist’s granddaughter Cosima Spender, the film interweaves personal recollections from Gorky’s wife Agnes “Mougouch” Magruder along with insights from curator Claire Howard, to trace a pivotal chapter in the artist’s life and work.

In diary entries from the late 1930s and early 1940s, Gorky was an artist in search of a visual language rooted in experience and place. Leaving New York in 1941 for his first extended journey across the United States since his arrival in 1920 as a refugee fleeing from the Armenian genocide, Gorky encountered a terrain that challenged and transformed his perception.

The film follows this westward road trip with Isamu Noguchi and Mougouch—a journey that marked Gorky’s first prolonged encounter with the American landscape. As Claire Howard notes, the vastness of the Grand Canyon and the High Sierras initially left him unmoved; only through close observation—grass, leaves, adobe ovens at a Hopi reservation that echoed his Armenian village—did he begin to connect memory and motif.  
 
In 1941, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art is “a turning point in his career,” says Howard, exhibiting works that are simultaneously abstract and autobiographical. An artist negotiating his own past while responding to the topography of America, “you could see how nature was alive to him” says Mougouch, “as a mixture of his early memories and his new perceptions.”

“The looseness of his paint handling is what allows him to really channel his emotions and translate the feelings he’s having before nature,” reflects Howard. “His real genius was making it look effortless and spontaneous.” In Gorky’s unique visual language, memory and terrain converge, yielding forms that are at once personal and universal—a horizon seen not only in space, but also within.

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Claire Howard is the Hansjörg Wyss Curator of Modern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and was previously Associate Curator, Collections and Exhibitions at the Blanton Museum of Art, where she organized exhibitions including Arshile Gorky and Isamu Noguchi: Outside In and Long Live Surrealism! 1924–Today. She holds a PhD in art history, has published widely on modern and postwar art, and is a founding board member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.

Mougouch (Agnes Magruder Gorky) was an artist, writer and the wife of Arshile Gorky, whose presence was central to his life and work during his final years. Following Gorky’s death, she became an important steward of his legacy, preserving his writings and offering an intimate perspective on his life and artistic practice. 
 
Cosima Spender is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work explores identity, tradition and creative lives, including Palio (2015), Sanpa: Sins of the Saviour (2020) and Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe (2024). A graduate of the UK National Film and Television School, she also directed Without Gorky (2011), a film about her grandfather, Arshile Gorky. 
 
Valerio Bonelli is an award-winning film editor whose work spans feature films, television and documentary, including Darkest Hour, Philomena, The Martian and Florence Foster Jenkins. He won Best Documentary Editing at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival for Palio and has collaborated frequently with Cosima Spender on projects including Sanpa: Sins of the Saviour and Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe.

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Archival photographs from Arshile Gorky: Horizon West

Gorky, late 1920s. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Arshile Gorky Foundation. 
Gorky at work on Activities on the Field, from Aviation: Evolution of Forms Under Aerodynamic Limitations, in the WPA/FAP studio, New York, 1936. Federal Art Project Photographic Division Collection. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Gorky, New York, 1946. Photo by Gjon Mili. © Gjon Mili/LIFE/Shutterstock.
Gorky, New York, 1946. Photo by Gjon Mili. © Gjon Mili/LIFE/Shutterstock.
Mougouch in a flowery dress, c. 1939. Photo by Essie or John H. Magruder II. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky and Willem de Kooning in front of an earlier state of Organization, 36 Union Square, New York, c. 1935. Photo: Oliver Baker. Rudi Blesh papers, circa 1900–1983, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Gorky and John Graham, New York, c. 1930–32. Unknown photographer. John D. Graham papers, 1799–1988, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Isamu Noguchi with Metamorphosis (1946) and The Queen (1931), c. 1940s. Unknown photographer. © 2026 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Gorky in his studio at 36 Union Square, c. 1933. Photo by Alexander Sandow. Courtesy Estate of Helen and Alexander Sandow; Lisa Sandow Lyons and Greg Sandow, executors.
Gorky's studio at 36 Union Square, c. 1946. Photo by Anne Tredick. Courtesy of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.
Gorky painting at his Sullivan Street studio, New York, c. 1927. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.
Gorky at work on Organization in his studio, 36 Union Square, New York, c. 1935. Photo: Wyatt Davis. Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 69-N-3179C.
Gorky and Mougouch, Cape May, NJ, September 1942. Photo by John H. Magruder III. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Jeanne Reynal at Julien Levy Gallery, New York, 1948. Photo by John R Kennedy, Kay Bell Studios. Courtesy of the artist's estate and Eric Firestone Gallery, New York.
Gorky and his mother, Shushan Der Marderosian Adoian, Van, c. 1912. Unknown photographer (likely Hovhannes Avedaghayan). Courtesy of Dr. Bruce Berberian and the Arshile Gorky Foundation.
The Ottoman Empire's military personnel forcibly escorting Armenian men from Kharput towards an execution location situated beyond the city, March 1915. Photo by Armin T. Wegner.
Gorky looking down, c. 1935. Photo by Wyatt Davis. Courtesy of Joan Davis and the Arshile Gorky Foundation.
Gorky, late 1920s. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.
"Mougouch, early 1940s. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky."
Gorky posing in his studio at 36 Union Square, New York, c. 1935. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.
Mougouch, shortly before she met Gorky, c. 1940. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Clipping of "S.F. Museum Shows Art by A. Gorky," Oakland Tribune (CA), August 17, 1941, p. 6S.
Clipping of Alexander Fried's "Gorky Oils of Surrealist School," San Francisco Examiner, August 17, 1941, p. 9.
Clipping of Emilia Hodel's "Leger's [. . .]." San Francisco News, August 17, 1941, p. 8.
Gorky kneeling next to Mougouch in the country, early 1940s. Photo by Essie or John H. Magruder II. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky and Mougouch at an amusement park, San Francisco, 1941. Unknown photographer. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky and Mougouch, Cape May, NJ, September 1942. Photo by John H. Magruder III. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky with baby Maro in a bucket, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia, 1943. Photo by Essie or John H. Magruder II. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky with baby Maro in a bucket, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia, 1943. Photo by Essie or John H. Magruder II. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky with Maro on his lap, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia 1943. Photo by Agnes Magruder Gorky. © Estate of Agnes Fielding. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Cows, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia, 1944. Photo by Agnes Magruder Gorky. © Estate of Agnes Fielding. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Fence, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia, 1944. Photo by Agnes Magruder Gorky. © Estate of Agnes Fielding. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Fields, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia, 1944. Photo by Agnes Magruder Gorky. © Estate of Agnes Fielding. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky drawing in field, Crooked Run Farm, Lincoln, Virginia, 1944. Photo by Agnes Magruder Gorky. © Estate of Agnes Fielding. Courtesy of the Estate of Arshile Gorky.
Gorky in his studio, Sherman, Connecticut, 1948. Photo by Ben Schnall. Courtesy of the Arshile Gorky Foundation.

Archival film footage from Arshile Gorky: Horizon West

Gorky painting and drawing outside, New York, October 1942. 8mm film by Moorad Mooradian. Mooradian Collection, ZIC Special Collections, Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center, Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY.
A military flight performance takes place, 1930s. Footage: Silverwell Films.
Prop plane files above the New York City skyline, 1937. Footage: Silverwell Films.
Rockefeller Center under construction, 1930s. Footage: Grinberg, Paramount, Pathe Newsreels.
For the Living by New York City, Television Production Unit, c. 1949.
Art in San Francisco, by Heinz Berggruen, c. 1942-43.
Process Plate, Manhattan, New York City, 8th Avenue, 5th Avenue, and 50th Street, c. 1945. Videographer Unknown.
Home Movie by G.W. Foose Collection. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie by G.W. Foose Collection. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 000418: Trip to California and Yellowstone, 1941.
Home Movie: 004720. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 001492. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 004233: G.W. Foose Collection. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 000520: Howards Go West, 1947, Reel 2.
Home Movie: 001492. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 097744. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 004525. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie by Jamison Family: Jamison Collection: 004123. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 004525 (Version 002). Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Home Movie: 000508: Oregon Coast, Cross-Country Road Trip, Residential Neighborhood in Winter, c. 1948.
Home Movie: 000508: Oregon Coast, Cross-Country Road Trip, Residential Neighborhood in Winter, c. 1948.
Home Movie: Paul Steelman Collection: 004113. Courtesy Prelinger Archives.
Untitled: San Francisco Waterfront and City, c. 1930s-1940s.