Ron Gorchov

Ron Gorchov was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1930. He attended the University of Mississippi in 1947, spend the following two years at the Roosevelt College & Art Institute in Chicago and rounded up his studies at the University of Illinois in 1951.

Bridging sculpture and abstract painting, Gorchov has developed a singular artistic vocabulary over his decades of practice. His oil on linen paintings pair one or two biomorphic colored shapes against differently colored backgrounds, in addition to hanging his work on a shaped canvas stretcher that is at once concave and convex, a shape critics have compared to shields or saddles. Gorchov belongs to a generation of painters who removed their canvases from the rectangular stretcher, seeking a new pictorial field, yet he is unique in his ability to unite form and content while preserving their tensions. Critic Robert C. Morgan wrote of Gorchov that he does not paint to make a point: “Rather he simply states that the convex saddle is closer to how we perceive than the hardened rectangle. This is the given in his work, and he moves ahead from there, often with extraordinarily lyrical results.”

Gorchov’s paintings are included in renowned collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Detroit Institutes of Art, Michigan; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Everson Museum of Art, New York.

Gorchov lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2019

• Ron Gorchov, The Shade Between, MARUANI MERCIER
• Ron Gorchov, Modern Art, London

2018

• Ron Gorchov, Max Hetzler, Berlin
• Ron Gorchov: Solo Booth, MARUANI MERCIER, EXPO Chicago

2017

• Ron Gorchov, Cheim & Read, New York
• Ron Gorchov, MARUANI MERCIER, Knokke, Belgium

2016

• Ron Gorchov: Works from the 1970s, Vito Schnabel Projects, New York
• Ron Gorchov: Stacks, ADAA: The Art Show, Park Avenue Armory, New York
• Ron Gorchov: Concord, Vito Schnabel Gallery, St. Moritz, Switzerland

2015

• Ron Gorchov, curated by Vito Schnabel, Sotheby’s S|2, London
• Ron Gorchov - Recent Works, Thomas Brambilla, Bergamo, Italy

2014

• Ron Gorchov: Serapis, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
• Entrance, Cheim & Read, Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland

2013

• Ron Gorchov, 39 Great Jones, New York
• Ron Gorchov, Lesley Heller Workspace, New York
• Ron Gorchov, Monsieur X., Vito Schnabel, New York
• Ron Gorchov, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland

HONORS AND AWARDS

• Skowhegan Medal for Painting, 2010
• Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2010
• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Painting, 1994
• National Endowment for the Arts Award for Painting, 1975
• CAPS Award, 1975
• Ingram Merrill Award, 1059

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
• Detroit Art Museum, Detroit, Mississippi
• Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
• FRAC Auvergne, Clermont Ferrand, France
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York