0:00:15 > 0:00:21'My grandfather was a painter. He died more than 60 years ago.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26'My mother was five and my aunt almost three.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33'We're going to the last house they lived in.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43'He killed himself here.'
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Do you remember it, Maro?
0:00:49 > 0:00:54Well, I remember there used to be a table, a big table here.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57We used to draw here. Or maybe not.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02- Maybe the dining room table was here.- I think it was here.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07This is where we did our crayons. The living room was always the living room.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11The dining room table must have been here.
0:01:11 > 0:01:15I remember him making us scrambled eggs.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25Just a slight, dim, thing of jet lag.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28THEY LAUGH
0:01:35 > 0:01:39I dragged you up and we saw our parents having a horrible fight.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42- But it's not that.- Of course it is.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45I forced you to go up the staircase.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49You were much too scared. You didn't want to go up at all.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54I'm beginning to feel things at the mention of the staircase.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59SHE SOBS
0:02:26 > 0:02:30'I've heard stories of him all my life -
0:02:30 > 0:02:34'his art, his memories, his lies, his death.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40'And always tangled family tales with no beginning and no end.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43'The white noise of my life.
0:02:48 > 0:02:53'Gorky was the last surrealist and the first abstract expressionist.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57'He created himself as an artist
0:02:57 > 0:03:01'and kept working as tragedies unfolded around him.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08'His life was his art. His art was his life.'
0:03:13 > 0:03:15DOORBELL RINGS
0:03:15 > 0:03:19'The only remaining witness of his last years
0:03:19 > 0:03:21'is my grandmother, Mougouch.'
0:03:21 > 0:03:24- Hello.- Hello, darling.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38I was 19 when I first met Gorky.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43I was told by Bill de Kooning
0:03:43 > 0:03:47that I must meet Gorky.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50That Gorky must meet me, was the way he put it.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53So I went and I sat down,
0:03:53 > 0:03:58quietly, in this room full of people
0:03:58 > 0:04:02next to a gentleman with a moustache but nobody had described Gorky.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05They said, "Oh, you'll see him.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09"He'll get up and immediately start singing and dancing."
0:04:09 > 0:04:11So I sat next to this silent gentleman.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14I said nothing and he said nothing.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20Finally, I decided, "Well, I don't know where this man called Gorky is.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24"I might as well leave because I don't see anybody."
0:04:24 > 0:04:28And then, when I stood up, he stood up.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32The man I'd been sitting next to. He was nice and tall.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35And he said, as we were leaving,
0:04:35 > 0:04:37"Is your name Miss Maguida?"
0:04:37 > 0:04:40I said, "Not quite. But it's Magruder."
0:04:40 > 0:04:44And he said, "I was asked to meet you."
0:04:44 > 0:04:47I said, "Well, hello."
0:04:47 > 0:04:51He said, "As we haven't talked, shall we go and have a coffee?"
0:04:51 > 0:04:54And I said, "I think that would be very nice."
0:04:56 > 0:05:01'When my grandparents met in 1940, he was 20 years older than her.
0:05:01 > 0:05:07'Gorky was part of the emerging New York art scene, working alone in his studio downtown,
0:05:07 > 0:05:09'dining in the quick and dirty cafes
0:05:09 > 0:05:15'with John Graham, Stuart Davis and Bill de Kooning.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18'What we know about his life in the hard-living '30s,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20'before he met my grandmother,
0:05:20 > 0:05:25'comes from the letters he wrote to his sister living in Chicago.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27'"Dear Vartoosh,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30'"when you write that you're always lonely
0:05:30 > 0:05:33'"my heart fills with great bitterness.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37'"Surely, that was our destiny.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42'"I, too, feel lonely always, even if I see lots of friends.
0:05:42 > 0:05:47'"Even if I'm among thousands of people, I always feel lonely."'
0:05:50 > 0:05:55He said, "Tell me about yourself." I said, "There's nothing to tell.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57"I'm just beginning my life in New York."
0:05:57 > 0:05:59He loved New York.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03He took me all over New York. We explored every corner.
0:06:03 > 0:06:08East Side, West Side, north, south, always by foot.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17'Mougouch let me film her for the first time ten years ago.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20'That's when I started to listen closely,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23'to try and make sense of what happened.'
0:06:23 > 0:06:26- I wish you wouldn't take that?- Why?
0:06:26 > 0:06:30- Because it's not my cigarette. - Because you usually...?
0:06:30 > 0:06:33An unusual cigarette.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39'Mougouch was a spirited and adventurous young woman
0:06:39 > 0:06:43'who'd grown up all over the world following her father,
0:06:43 > 0:06:45'an admiral in the US Navy.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49'When she got to New York from Shanghai, aged 19 and alone,
0:06:49 > 0:06:53'she wanted to break away from her privileged background.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57'She worked on a Maoist paper and wanted to become a painter.'
0:06:57 > 0:07:00This was my street.
0:07:00 > 0:07:05- This is where you walked every day. - Every day. Where I walked my babies.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08Every day.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12So then, he took me to his studio. It was so big.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16So vast and empty.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Three chairs and a round table.
0:07:21 > 0:07:27And this wonderful big easel, great big one!
0:07:27 > 0:07:29Like a crucifix.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33And a big window coming right down
0:07:33 > 0:07:35from the ceiling.
0:07:35 > 0:07:40We had a room on the side, where he kept all his paintings.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43- Which was the first one he showed you?- Oh!
0:07:43 > 0:07:45When he showed me his...
0:07:45 > 0:07:49The first thing he showed me was his mother and himself.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55That painting, that's in the Whitney Museum.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02I guess his mother must have loved him a lot.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05He lost her when he was very young.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08I don't think he was very far in his teens.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20His mother was very beautiful.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24And she wanted him to be something special.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28She took him to a marble seat
0:08:28 > 0:08:31and said, "You must be a poet."
0:08:31 > 0:08:36Poetry, you see, was the beautiful thing for her.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40And he felt she had given him a proper mission.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47He told me the story of his life and so on, with emendations!
0:08:47 > 0:08:51They were very happy, on the whole, his memories.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55That's what he chose to tell me about.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58Climbing trees and looking for bird's nests.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06'Gorky chose what to forget and made paintings with what to remember.
0:09:06 > 0:09:12'He lied about his past. He was an Armenian refugee, but he hid it.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14'He reinvented himself.
0:09:14 > 0:09:19'He said he was the nephew of Maxim Gorky, the Russian writer.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23'He said he studied with Kandinsky in Paris
0:09:23 > 0:09:25'and was a graduate of Brown.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28'He plagiarised his love letters to Mougouch.'
0:09:28 > 0:09:34As he told me so many myths, and I believed them all.
0:09:34 > 0:09:39I was a beautiful blank book that he could write anything he wanted in!
0:09:39 > 0:09:41SHE LAUGHS
0:09:42 > 0:09:45But he was so proud and high
0:09:45 > 0:09:47and fine-looking,
0:09:47 > 0:09:49and he had a mighty paintbrush.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52I was smitten immediately.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57Oh! I was absolutely stunned by his painting.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01I had never seen painting like it. I mean, it was delicious.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10'Mougouch once took down his words as he painted.
0:10:10 > 0:10:12'"I measure all things by weight.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16'"I love my Mougouch. What about Papa Cezanne?
0:10:16 > 0:10:22'"I like the heat, the tenderness, the edible, the lusciousness,
0:10:22 > 0:10:24'"the song of a single person.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27'"I like Uccello, Grunewald
0:10:27 > 0:10:31'"and that man Pablo Picasso."'
0:10:32 > 0:10:38He used to go to the Metropolitan with his easel and paint there.
0:10:38 > 0:10:43He learnt, really, by... call it imitation, I suppose.
0:10:43 > 0:10:48He was totally eclectic, something from everywhere.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53Everybody said that he was just making Cezannes
0:10:53 > 0:10:56and making Picassos and making Matisses.
0:10:56 > 0:11:01He really didn't care. He wasn't interested in being original.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06I saw
0:11:06 > 0:11:10this very proud and amazing person
0:11:10 > 0:11:14who brought a dimension and a proof
0:11:14 > 0:11:20into my life that I could never find in my bourgeois existence.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26'"My dearest ones, this morning, Mougouch and I went with two friends
0:11:26 > 0:11:30'"to the city to get married tomorrow morning. We are very happy.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33'"Mougouch is a very beautiful and well educated girl,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37'"and has studied in Switzerland, France, England, Holland,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40'"and has visited every country in the world.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44'"She is studying a lot and every day she reads Marx, Engels,
0:11:44 > 0:11:46'"Lenin, Stalin."'
0:11:46 > 0:11:51So, once I had a baby, a little girl,
0:11:51 > 0:11:56it was all very well and he absolutely worshipped her.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00But how was I going to live in that flat in that studio?
0:12:00 > 0:12:02It was quite difficult.
0:12:04 > 0:12:09I think it was down there that I took Maro to a nursery school,
0:12:09 > 0:12:13where she claims she was pinned and tied up
0:12:13 > 0:12:16and had all sorts of indignities.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19SHE CHUCKLES But...
0:12:19 > 0:12:22It took her out of the studio for a few hours.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25The studio was quite small?
0:12:25 > 0:12:29No, the studio was huge, but Gorky was trying to paint in it.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36And there you are in dear dreary old Connecticut
0:12:36 > 0:12:40in the woods, in the spring of 1945.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43Before little Natasha was born.
0:12:43 > 0:12:48- So Natasha wasn't even born.- No. - She wasn't a month old or something?
0:12:48 > 0:12:50She was a month old in the other picture.
0:12:50 > 0:12:55- I'm saying that this photograph... - Darling, it's written here.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00- "Spring of 1945." I know when he came.- But all these photographs...
0:13:00 > 0:13:04She was born after that, Natasha, in August, three months later.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07- This was done at the same time. - That's right.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10They were all done at the same time.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15He was like a mysterious person in a fairy tale.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18I remember nice things, like...
0:13:19 > 0:13:23..cutting out coloured paper and drawing with crayons.
0:13:23 > 0:13:29But...it was pretty horrific. A lot of tension in the house.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33At least I can remember. My sister Natasha doesn't remember anything.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37It's far worse not remembering than to remember.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40And did you know he'd committed suicide?
0:13:40 > 0:13:43No, I didn't. I thought he'd died.
0:13:43 > 0:13:48I found out by reading a clipping in a newspaper when I was about...
0:13:50 > 0:13:53..12? Or 13?
0:13:53 > 0:13:56And I was very shocked.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58How did you recover so well, Mummy?
0:13:59 > 0:14:06By isolating myself and not participating very much in the world, it seems to me.
0:14:06 > 0:14:11I couldn't have done it without Matthew. Matthew was invaluable.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15PEACOCK CALLS
0:14:15 > 0:14:19- MALE SPEAKER:- I've been in this family 48 years, a long time.
0:14:19 > 0:14:25That involves a lot of Gorky, because he takes up a lot of space.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27So I've written a biography of him.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32I seem to remember a lot of dinner table conversation
0:14:32 > 0:14:34to be about Gorky.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36Do you?
0:14:36 > 0:14:39Well, you know, my wife and I,
0:14:39 > 0:14:44we get through a bottle of wine each a night,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48and we talk about the same things again and again and again.
0:14:48 > 0:14:54When you met Maro, did Mummy...did she speak about Gorky immediately?
0:14:57 > 0:15:02Maro talked more about her mother than her father, to begin with.
0:15:02 > 0:15:07We didn't know much about Gorky, except for what Mougouch told us.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14Maro had just been born and... how was I going to deal with Maro?
0:15:14 > 0:15:19How was I going to live in that flat in that studio?
0:15:19 > 0:15:23I suggested to my mother, who'd just bought a farmhouse in Virginia,
0:15:23 > 0:15:29I said, "Of course, we could come down and help you.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34"Gorky can dig in the garden and I can cook, and so on."
0:15:34 > 0:15:39So that was struck as a very good bargain. We'd go in the spring.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41And we'd watch the fall turning.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43We went back the next summer
0:15:43 > 0:15:46and the next summer.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52"Gorky has been thrashing over two particular canvases.
0:15:52 > 0:15:57"Now, having ravaged and worn them down like an angry sea,
0:15:57 > 0:16:01"he has left them to go out and draw, draw, draw.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05"He's sitting perched on his stool out on the side of the hill,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08"sitting for hours without seeming to move."
0:16:09 > 0:16:11He fell in love with the grasses
0:16:11 > 0:16:16and the cows and the trees and the weeds.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19What was so exciting about it
0:16:19 > 0:16:23was that he didn't know what he was doing himself.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27He'd come back and he'd say, "Can you see this?"
0:16:27 > 0:16:32Well, I'm looking at it. It's wonderful. It's extraordinary.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35"It doesn't matter, does it,
0:16:35 > 0:16:38"if you don't recognise anything?" I said, "No, I don't."
0:16:38 > 0:16:42I recognise shapes, but I don't know what they refer to.
0:16:44 > 0:16:46'With Mougouch,
0:16:46 > 0:16:50'Gorky stopped projecting himself through an imagined past
0:16:50 > 0:16:53'and had a chance to step into the present with new passion,
0:16:53 > 0:16:54'new opportunities
0:16:54 > 0:16:59'and new friends, like the painter Roberto Matta.'
0:16:59 > 0:17:01Gorky was very influenced by Matta.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04Matta helped him in many ways.
0:17:04 > 0:17:09Matta had said to him, "Why don't you just take a clean canvas
0:17:09 > 0:17:14"and just paint what you feel or see on that canvas
0:17:14 > 0:17:20"without too much forethought or too much...?
0:17:20 > 0:17:23"Don't work on it. Let it happen to you."
0:17:23 > 0:17:27And he realised that... he ought to try it.
0:17:27 > 0:17:32He'd never felt free enough to try it.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37'"I've been well and been working, and my way of working is changing.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41'"And for this reason I always feel extremely anxious.
0:17:41 > 0:17:46'"I want to attain works which are more personal and clean."'
0:17:46 > 0:17:50This was on his easel in the barn when I came to see him,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54probably having put the children to their naps.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56And was it a surprise to see that?
0:17:56 > 0:18:02Yeah. Because, you see...he'd been working from the drawings.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06And then, suddenly, he dismissed the drawing.
0:18:06 > 0:18:08He was completely free.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11He'd done it, I think, in two or three days.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14Oh, I said it was splendid. "You're off."
0:18:14 > 0:18:18I felt he was. He'd found his way out of the drawings.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28You can see how nature was alive to him.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31- He really didn't see what- I- saw.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34He saw things IN it.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38He looked at the spaces between things
0:18:38 > 0:18:42as much as he looked at the object itself.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48Like things that he might have seen in his dreams or imagination.
0:18:48 > 0:18:53Or a mixture of his early memories and his new perceptions.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57There was so much feeling in it,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00and the feeling came through to one.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04Having his own child,
0:19:04 > 0:19:06his own house
0:19:06 > 0:19:11and that trip to the country unstuck him.
0:19:11 > 0:19:13It was a gigantic movement.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18I gave him some kind of support that was more personal,
0:19:18 > 0:19:21not just his art, but was...for him.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27'Everything seemed possible at the end of that first summer.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31'Gorky came back to the city with a portfolio of vibrant new drawings
0:19:31 > 0:19:34'which opened new doors.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38'Their friend, Jeanne Reynal,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41'arranged an introduction with Andre Breton,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43'the leader of the surrealists
0:19:43 > 0:19:45'in exile from occupied Paris.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51'It was a heady energetic milieu of established figures from Europe
0:19:51 > 0:19:54'that included Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01'With the surrealists, Gorky found a group who not only recognised
0:20:01 > 0:20:04'but also championed him as their bridge to America.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08'Breton arranged his first solo exhibition in 20 years
0:20:08 > 0:20:12'at the avant-garde Julien Levy Gallery.'
0:20:12 > 0:20:16The opening was hardly what's called a success.
0:20:17 > 0:20:23Julien didn't get the invitations out until after the show opened.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Imagine! So nobody came.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28There was me and Gorky and my mother,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31Andre Breton, Julien Levy
0:20:31 > 0:20:34and I think Marcel Duchamp came.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38Rather a nice little group of something like six people.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41That was the opening of poor Gorky's exhibition.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44"Julien told him that the critics had been stonier
0:20:44 > 0:20:48"and more unresponsive than he'd ever known them.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51"That usually he could handle them, but this time,
0:20:51 > 0:20:54"there was a blind opposition
0:20:54 > 0:20:57"he had never in his career come up against."
0:20:57 > 0:21:01You see what a real sadist he was?
0:21:03 > 0:21:08Julien's contract was for 175 a month.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11He would have a certain amount of paintings a year
0:21:11 > 0:21:13and a certain amount of drawings.
0:21:13 > 0:21:18They were his, anyhow, whether he sold them or not.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20We had 175 a month.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24We paid 55 for the rent of the studio.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29If that silly fool had given us a tiny bit more money
0:21:29 > 0:21:32I could have lived not in that studio,
0:21:32 > 0:21:36but we couldn't afford a living place.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41- Did he need silence to work? - Well, not so much he needed silence,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44but he didn't need two little girls romping around.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46How could I keep them occ...?
0:21:46 > 0:21:51Sometimes it rains, it's impossible to go for a walk in the park.
0:21:51 > 0:21:56You stay out all day and you're so tired you can't cook supper.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01It's hard staying out for hours and hours
0:22:01 > 0:22:03with two little children.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09'As the studio in New York became too cramped for a family,
0:22:09 > 0:22:11'they moved to the countryside.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16'A friend put them up and found a space for Gorky to work in.'
0:22:16 > 0:22:19I was at the mercy of the generosity of my friends,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22constantly packing things up
0:22:22 > 0:22:26and going somewhere which wasn't ours.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28It was awful.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32I sometimes think my great mistake in Gorky's life, really.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36Except he got SUCH joy from the children.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38What can I say?
0:22:38 > 0:22:43It was tough on me. It was tough on him. It was tough on the children.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45It wasn't stable.
0:22:45 > 0:22:51The only stability Gorky had was in the studio in New York.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54This was just after Natasha was born, wasn't it?
0:22:54 > 0:22:58Well, it was during Natasha's... She was born...
0:22:58 > 0:23:02We moved there when she was two months old - not even.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06She was born in August and we moved there in September.
0:23:06 > 0:23:12But thank God! She was a very easy, healthy baby.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38- Do you remember Gorky? - No.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41Not, um...
0:23:42 > 0:23:45- Not consciously.- Hm.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50I have no recollection of when Gorky was alive.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52I have NO recollection.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00Where did you find out that he killed himself?
0:24:01 > 0:24:03I don't remember.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06I was not quite three.
0:24:06 > 0:24:08Not quite three.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12I think now, from the perspective now,
0:24:12 > 0:24:16I realise I've been in shock a lot of my life.
0:24:16 > 0:24:21From the photographs I see, I was very angry, but didn't know it.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25I felt... I just didn't feel connected to Mummy.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27I just didn't feel like... You know.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31I didn't want to be around her, basically.
0:24:33 > 0:24:35She never paid attention to me.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39She always thought I was OK and I wasn't a problem.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44So I think that's what I just did. I sort of wanted to disappear.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48MOUGOUCH: And here's Gorky with Natasha.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50His little plumber.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52Look at Natasha.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55She always says she was so miserable.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00She wasn't.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12'As a child, I was told of a story Gorky's mother told him,
0:25:12 > 0:25:16'a story of defiance and destruction.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19'A family myth of how his great-grandmother,
0:25:19 > 0:25:24'undone by grief at the slaughter of her last nephew, cursed God
0:25:24 > 0:25:27'and set fire to the family church she tended.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34'I was told Gorky's fires were always a little too big.'
0:25:44 > 0:25:48"Darling Jeanne, anything that follows is an understatement.
0:25:48 > 0:25:55"On Wednesday January 16, Gorky's studio in the country burnt to the ground. Everything was lost.
0:25:55 > 0:26:00"Gorky smelled some smoke, but he was working with great passion
0:26:00 > 0:26:03"and thought it was his cigarette."
0:26:03 > 0:26:07He was just happily working away in the smoke.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11Then he walked down, and he's passed by our friend, Jean.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14She said, "Gorky, what are you doing with that water?"
0:26:14 > 0:26:17He said, "I'm putting out the fire."
0:26:17 > 0:26:20He'd walked by her three or four times
0:26:20 > 0:26:24without saying, "Call the fire engines."
0:26:24 > 0:26:27- How many paintings burnt, do you think?- We really don't know.
0:26:27 > 0:26:29Quite a few.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34I thought he would be absolutely broken. Not at all.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36He felt it didn't matter.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40It was all inside him and it would all come out again.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48Then came the operation - bang! Like that, on top of it.
0:26:48 > 0:26:53It was a terrible operation for a colostomy, that's what it's called.
0:26:57 > 0:27:02It wasn't something we had five minutes to think about. Not five.
0:27:02 > 0:27:08He went to the doctor and the doctor rang me up and said, "I'm sending him straight to the hospital."
0:27:10 > 0:27:15'"Dear Vartoosh, we thought that we'd have a house in Connecticut,
0:27:15 > 0:27:18'"but that damn fire destroyed everything.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22'"Mougouch and I thought that you were coming to us this summer,
0:27:22 > 0:27:24'"but it didn't happen.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27'"For us to come to you is quite difficult
0:27:27 > 0:27:30'"because I have to paint a lot.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33'"You know that after I went to hospital
0:27:33 > 0:27:36'"for a long time I wasn't able to work."'
0:27:38 > 0:27:41You've known people who've had cancer.
0:27:41 > 0:27:43It is a kind of death.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46I mean, it becomes very near death.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51I think Gorky never thought he would ever be normal.
0:27:51 > 0:27:58I know he never thought. He wouldn't let himself have anything that...
0:27:58 > 0:28:04that any doctor suggested, in terms of how to deal with his cancer.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08He did it his own way, which was exhausting.
0:28:11 > 0:28:16'Gorky couldn't bear the humiliation of his body. He starved himself.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19'He wrapped himself daily in tight bandages
0:28:19 > 0:28:23'to try and control the fluids and noises from the colostomy bag.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25'He retreated into himself.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30'He was angry and ashamed, and friends began to avoid them.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34'Mougouch couldn't reach him.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38'She kept it together for a year and then began to crack.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41'She was 26 years old.'
0:28:45 > 0:28:49Things went very fast. We moved in wintertime.
0:28:49 > 0:28:54We moved to the country as soon as we could. We moved to Sherman.
0:28:55 > 0:29:00We should never have gone to the house in Connecticut.
0:29:02 > 0:29:04To that house.
0:29:05 > 0:29:07It was doomed.
0:29:08 > 0:29:12Gorky was going into some dark place, as it were.
0:29:12 > 0:29:14And his paintings were.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17There's a painting, Dark Green Painting.
0:29:17 > 0:29:23I know he painted it down there in that little studio in Connecticut.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28Gorky couldn't work. He was tired. He didn't like the studio.
0:29:28 > 0:29:30It was winter.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34The children were in the house a lot.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37He used to get terribly angry with Maro.
0:29:37 > 0:29:39He kept saying things like,
0:29:39 > 0:29:46"Do you want to kill your little sister?" when she would, you know, give her a biff or something.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51SHE SIGHS
0:29:51 > 0:29:55That whole winter that we were there before he killed himself,
0:29:55 > 0:29:59several times he walked up that drive
0:29:59 > 0:30:02with this great rope - I knew what he was going to do.
0:30:02 > 0:30:07He was going to the barn, where he always went cos he loved that barn.
0:30:07 > 0:30:12He took... He had his site all chosen.
0:30:12 > 0:30:18I used to send the children after him, because I said, "Look at Daddy.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21- "He's going to make you a swing." - Hm.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23"Go and run with him."
0:30:23 > 0:30:27They'd run off to him and he'd come back, of course.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32He did that...three times.
0:30:34 > 0:30:37It was a terrible, terrible winter
0:30:37 > 0:30:40and I was worn down to the ground.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44Then he didn't know what to do, what to paint.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47He kept asking me, "What can I do? What can I paint?"
0:30:47 > 0:30:51I said, "Why don't you paint some portraits?
0:30:51 > 0:30:57"I'll sit for you. You haven't painted a portrait for years."
0:30:57 > 0:31:00"No! No!" He didn't feel like portraits.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04Landscape was wrong. Everything was wrong. I was wrong.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07The babies were making too much noise.
0:31:07 > 0:31:10I mean, it was a very...
0:31:10 > 0:31:15a most...upsetting time.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17And I bust. I broke.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19Finally.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27'One of the few friends who still kept in touch was Roberto Matta.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30'Mougouch turned to him for support.'
0:31:30 > 0:31:33I didn't have anybody helping me.
0:31:33 > 0:31:38Before I went off with Matta for a weekend... It was only a weekend.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42It wasn't... I said I'd be back on Sunday night and I was.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45I went off on Friday.
0:31:45 > 0:31:50I didn't know where I was going until I got to the...
0:31:50 > 0:31:53our local little shop
0:31:53 > 0:31:55to talk to them and see the...
0:31:55 > 0:31:58And you left the children with him?
0:31:58 > 0:32:02Well, I left... No. The children had gone to my mother's.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13I had to escape somewhere. I wasn't planning to escape forever.
0:32:13 > 0:32:19I was planning to go for two days with somebody I knew would love me
0:32:19 > 0:32:21and make me feel loved.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25- I needed it more than anything. - Of course, you're right, Mummy.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29- You would never have stood what I stood.- Of course I wouldn't.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32I'm such a monster, compared to you.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36Any man who treated me like...you were treated,
0:32:36 > 0:32:39I would have buzzed off very quickly.
0:32:39 > 0:32:44- Or I wouldn't have gone...- He didn't treat me like that in the beginning.
0:32:44 > 0:32:49- It's only because he became jealous. - I think he overworked that summer.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52I think he was worn out. And he was in pain, Mummy.
0:32:52 > 0:32:57Oh, I do know how he was in pain. I know every bit of that pain.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00I could tell you not only that, but the worst thing about Gorky
0:33:00 > 0:33:04was that he had absolutely no self-control.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06None.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08Hm.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16'I'd heard this scene so many times before.
0:33:16 > 0:33:22'It had become like a piece of theatre in which everyone knew their role and was unwilling to let go.'
0:33:22 > 0:33:25MACHINE WHIRRS
0:33:27 > 0:33:32'As if that were all that remained of their relationship with Gorky.'
0:33:32 > 0:33:36Christ! I have the same thing with my mum.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40- Yeah, I know. It's discouraging, isn't it?- It's not discouraging.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44- You're 65, Maro. You ought to be grown-up.- 66.- 66.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47I know. Grown out and about.
0:33:47 > 0:33:49Your adolescences are over.
0:33:49 > 0:33:52I know. She's over, too. I'm not giving her a present.
0:33:52 > 0:33:57- She hasn't given me one for years. - Oh, grumpy, grumpy, grumpy!
0:33:57 > 0:34:00My love, I haven't had my coffee yet.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04OK, cake, fruit tarts...
0:34:04 > 0:34:09- Fish. She wants a big fish. She does not want mackerel.- OK.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13- From where? A supermarket? - Where else?
0:34:13 > 0:34:17Are you planning to fish it yourself?
0:34:17 > 0:34:21- God! Baby's in really a bad mood. - I had a sleepless night.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27- What happened? - I couldn't sleep. I felt asthmatic.
0:34:27 > 0:34:29I felt suffocating.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33- It's the past, my sweet.- The past was sitting on me like a succubus.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40Because it's not your mother, you can laugh. Agh!
0:34:47 > 0:34:49I must cut some weeds.
0:34:49 > 0:34:54My one flower bed is just a jungle of grass.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57Don't do it now. You'll be too tired tomorrow.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06This "doco" is a little bit like group therapy, isn't it?
0:35:06 > 0:35:11You've stirred the muddy waters, Cosie.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14- Anyway, you don't seem angry.- No.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17How could I be angry for something that happened?
0:35:17 > 0:35:21I went through the anger. I was angry when I was young.
0:35:21 > 0:35:26It's a question of knowing what happened. Knowledge is healing.
0:35:26 > 0:35:29The worst thing is not knowing.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33'As in all tragedy,
0:35:33 > 0:35:37'there are points where things could have gone differently for Gorky
0:35:37 > 0:35:39'on the way to meet his fate.
0:35:39 > 0:35:44'While Mougouch was away, a car crash left his collarbone broken
0:35:44 > 0:35:47'and his painting arm paralysed.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50'Julien Levy, his dealer, was driving.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52'They were both drunk.'
0:35:52 > 0:35:56So then I brought this poor darling home.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59That was it. And we had two weeks at home.
0:35:59 > 0:36:01Or three weeks or four weeks
0:36:01 > 0:36:05after my "escapade".
0:36:06 > 0:36:11Yes. So we had those weeks of trying to live together.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14And Gorky went on drinking
0:36:14 > 0:36:17and... Oh!
0:36:18 > 0:36:20It was... It was just awful.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26He then told me that he discovered
0:36:26 > 0:36:31that I'd gone away and spent two nights away with another man.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36When he told me that, I wasn't going to pretend any different.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40I said, "Well, if I did, then I did.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43"But it isn't because I don't love you.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46"It's because you've been so cruel to me.
0:36:46 > 0:36:53"You made me feel as though there wasn't room for me in your life with the children.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55"I don't know what to do about it."
0:36:55 > 0:36:58He suddenly went... I remember.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02Everything that I'd ever been given by a surrealist...
0:37:02 > 0:37:08He tore up pictures and Matta's drawings.
0:37:08 > 0:37:10And somebody...
0:37:10 > 0:37:14The necklaces that Jeanne had given me, he ripped them apart.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18Then he had sudden moments of trying to beat me up.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21Then, of course, the children would hear it.
0:37:21 > 0:37:26I tried to get down the stairs and out of the house and I did,
0:37:26 > 0:37:30but he shoved me halfway down so the children heard me tumbling.
0:37:30 > 0:37:38And then I ran out of the house and I stayed in the bushes outside.
0:37:44 > 0:37:47SOBBING
0:38:02 > 0:38:05Let's go and see where our bedroom is.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23- I thought it was huge. - God! It's tiny!
0:38:25 > 0:38:26Yeah.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31You, poor thing, I woke you up.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34We came up the staircase and I saw Gorky
0:38:34 > 0:38:38towering over our mother, who's crunched down,
0:38:38 > 0:38:42kneeling, protecting herself, in front of the mirror.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46SIGHS
0:38:49 > 0:38:53I didn't want to leave the house. I wanted to be within hearing.
0:38:53 > 0:38:59He'd gathered the children out of their beds, brought them downstairs
0:38:59 > 0:39:02and was telephoning everybody saying I'd run away
0:39:02 > 0:39:05and I'd gone to get the police.
0:39:05 > 0:39:09So I came in and said, "Gorky! How could you say such a silly thing?
0:39:09 > 0:39:16"Of course I'm not going to get the police. I just don't want you to be so angry with me."
0:39:16 > 0:39:19The children, of course, were terrified,
0:39:19 > 0:39:21full of tears and crying and crying.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25So I said, "I'm going to put my children to bed."
0:39:25 > 0:39:28I took the children and put them into bed.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32Then Gorky came up and he sat on Maro's bed.
0:39:32 > 0:39:34And he said...
0:39:37 > 0:39:39"..Darling little Maro.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44"You know I am an artist and artists sometimes lose their minds.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47"And I... I...
0:39:47 > 0:39:51"But it's not... It doesn't last.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55"It's past. It's all over. I promise you it's all over."
0:39:55 > 0:39:57And Maro said, "No, it isn't."
0:40:01 > 0:40:03She knew!
0:40:03 > 0:40:07Yes! Yes! Yes! This is where it all happened!
0:40:10 > 0:40:14'When they left for New York to seek professional advice,
0:40:14 > 0:40:18'it was to be the last time that the children saw that house
0:40:18 > 0:40:20'and their father.
0:40:20 > 0:40:27'They were dropped off at Jeanne's while Mougouch went to speak to Gorky's doctor.'
0:40:27 > 0:40:31I told the doctor that I'd spent two nights away from Gorky.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36But he was very upset. "Of course he is!" said the doctor.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40"All I can do is say you must go away."
0:40:40 > 0:40:44Well, I rang Matta to say that...
0:40:44 > 0:40:48And Matta said, "I've just come back from seeing Gorky."
0:40:48 > 0:40:52I said, "You don't mean to say you went to see Gorky?"
0:40:52 > 0:40:57"Well, he called me up and asked me to meet him in Central Park."
0:40:57 > 0:40:58So...
0:41:00 > 0:41:04He, Matta, like an idiot, went to see him.
0:41:04 > 0:41:09He wanted to beat Matta up with his shillelagh he'd come to town with.
0:41:09 > 0:41:12He chased Matta around Central Park.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15LAUGHING: Finally, Matta gave up
0:41:15 > 0:41:20and they both sat down and started talking on a bench.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23I mean, it was totally mad! LAUGHS
0:41:23 > 0:41:28But Matta wanted to get hold of me cos he was terrified.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31He thought that Gorky might beat ME up.
0:41:31 > 0:41:36- And I wouldn't be able to get away. Well, he had tried already.- Mm.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40I told the doctor that and the doctor said,
0:41:40 > 0:41:42"I'm not going to let you go back.
0:41:42 > 0:41:47"I'll call Jeanne, tell her to put your children in a taxi."
0:41:47 > 0:41:53Jeanne did. They came up to the doctor's, I joined them and we left.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55Went down to my mother's.
0:41:56 > 0:42:01He rang me up and he asked me would I come back?
0:42:01 > 0:42:03And I said,
0:42:03 > 0:42:06"I have to know that you'll forgive me.
0:42:06 > 0:42:11"I can't come back if you're going to suddenly turn on me.
0:42:11 > 0:42:13"And the children.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16"I can't risk it, Gorky.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18"What can I say?"
0:42:20 > 0:42:23He was completely out of his mind.
0:42:23 > 0:42:28But he did come back into his mind, to the extent
0:42:28 > 0:42:33that he was definitely going to kill himself - he told me that he was.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35And that I mustn't... I mustn't...
0:42:35 > 0:42:40He was going to free me, that's what he said on the telephone.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44And then I knew he would.
0:42:44 > 0:42:45Mm.
0:42:45 > 0:42:50As I'd been trying to stop him for...eight months,
0:42:50 > 0:42:52and failed.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56CLAPS HANDS What could I do?
0:42:58 > 0:43:01And he did. There was nobody to stop him.
0:43:11 > 0:43:17'On July 21st 1948, Gorky left this painting on the easel
0:43:17 > 0:43:21'and walked into the woods to kill himself.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24'He scrawled in white chalk on a picture crate,
0:43:24 > 0:43:28'"Goodbye, my lovers." He wanted his last words to be great.
0:43:28 > 0:43:33So he borrowed them from the Russian writer Pushkin.
0:43:38 > 0:43:41- How beautiful, Natasha!- Mm.
0:43:41 > 0:43:43Huh?
0:43:45 > 0:43:49- Look at this beautiful waterfall. - Yeah.- Beautiful.
0:43:53 > 0:43:55Here it is, Nat!
0:43:55 > 0:43:58This is a definite log cabin.
0:44:02 > 0:44:05Peter Blume, when he came up here,
0:44:05 > 0:44:08he knew this was one of Gorky's favourite spots.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10He knew enough to come here.
0:44:10 > 0:44:14I don't think he would have killed himself so near the house,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18five minutes from the house, he wouldn't have done that.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21- Well, we're at least half an hour. - Exactly.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24- I mean, a bit of privacy, don't you think?- Yeah.
0:44:30 > 0:44:32If you're going to do it,
0:44:32 > 0:44:34it's a good place to do it.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38You're in nature and the sound helps you sort of...
0:44:39 > 0:44:42- ..to, you know. - And it's very quick.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45His neck was broken anyway.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48He just took his collar off
0:44:48 > 0:44:51and it would have happened very quickly.
0:44:53 > 0:44:55Hm?
0:45:01 > 0:45:05'Gorky's suicide was his last heroic act.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08'At the point in his life when his body failed him,
0:45:08 > 0:45:10'he chose his ending.
0:45:11 > 0:45:16'For his family, it marked the beginning of a journey of recovery,
0:45:16 > 0:45:18'a discovery of who he was.'
0:45:19 > 0:45:23Yes, it does. All right, dearie. Goodbye.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28- Nice to hear you... Hello! - Do you know something, Mummy?
0:45:28 > 0:45:32It's been incredibly useful having five handsome young men...
0:45:32 > 0:45:39- Course it is.- ..following us around these heart-wrenching places, like Gorky's suicide hutch.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42The staircase gave me the heebie-geebies.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45The staircase is very...
0:45:45 > 0:45:49- Scary! Spooky staircase.- It is for you, because it had lots of things.
0:45:49 > 0:45:54- I went tumbling down it.- That's it. - Rather urged by your father.
0:45:54 > 0:45:59So, Mummy, you must tell Mougouch your realisation
0:45:59 > 0:46:02that you told us at dinner the other night.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05What? That I'm pretty angry with my dad?
0:46:05 > 0:46:09Yeah. I'm pretty angry with Gorky for having killed himself.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12PHONE WHINES It's not a nice thing to do.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17It's not nice for Natasha or for me. Where is it?
0:46:17 > 0:46:20Here. I'll do it, dear. WHINING STOPS
0:46:20 > 0:46:22You've only said half the story.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25- You're unbelievable. - What is the rest of it?
0:46:25 > 0:46:29- You said you're less angry. - You're less angry with me?- Yeah.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33- It's nice, isn't it? - She can't say it. Go on. Say it!
0:46:33 > 0:46:36MARO LAUGHS She can't say it.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39Yeah, I am less angry with Mummy but...
0:46:39 > 0:46:42Well, thank heaven. We've made friends.
0:46:42 > 0:46:48Friends, Mummy? It's difficult for mother and daughter to be friends.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52- We'll always be mothers and daughters.- Well...
0:47:03 > 0:47:07More than anything, I remember how fascinated he was with painting.
0:47:07 > 0:47:12That made me want to paint as well because I thought, my God!
0:47:12 > 0:47:15Painting is a magical world.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20He would allow me to watch him painting.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24I was allowed to paint on the back of his paintings.
0:47:24 > 0:47:28Then I'd inevitably try and paint on the front and he didn't like that.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31He used to throw me out of his studio and...
0:47:32 > 0:47:34..onto the grass.
0:47:36 > 0:47:42The more he became famous, the more people started speaking about him.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45Including our family.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47Then as he became more famous,
0:47:47 > 0:47:52the deader he became, he resuscitated like an exciting ghost.
0:47:56 > 0:47:58'Had he lived to witness his own success,
0:47:58 > 0:48:03'my grandfather would have had to give up some of his secrets.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06'As he became more recognised after his death,
0:48:06 > 0:48:08'stories began to emerge,
0:48:08 > 0:48:13'things he'd kept hidden from his loved ones.'
0:48:13 > 0:48:17Of course, I didn't know his real name until after he was dead.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20So that was that.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24And found that his real name was...Vosdanik...
0:48:26 > 0:48:28..Adoian.
0:48:30 > 0:48:32Which is also a nice name.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37He wanted to become an American.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41He didn't want to ever say that he was an Armenian.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45I wanted to take him the way he wanted ME to take him.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49It never occurred to me that he would lie, for instance.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53But I was frightened to death of Gorky, in a funny way.
0:49:01 > 0:49:06'I remember my family was reluctant to visit the village where Gorky was born.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09'They feared there'd be nothing there.
0:49:09 > 0:49:15'They did not want to defy him, let real images replace their perceptions of Gorky's Armenia.'
0:49:30 > 0:49:32How many people were killed?
0:49:32 > 0:49:36Between one and a half million and two million, three million.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38Anything.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And there are no Armenians left in Van now?
0:49:41 > 0:49:44As far as I can tell, there aren't.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48The position of Gorky in this is that he is a very symbolic figure.
0:49:48 > 0:49:51You cannot deny that he went through the experience
0:49:51 > 0:49:57which Armenians describe as being a genocide and the Turks define as being a displacement.
0:49:57 > 0:50:03'Gorky's father fled to America before the massacres really started.
0:50:03 > 0:50:08'Once he was there, he soon set up a new family.
0:50:08 > 0:50:12'Gorky's mother sent him a photograph of herself with her son,
0:50:12 > 0:50:15'to remind him of their existence.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18'But the father never replied.
0:50:18 > 0:50:22'Years later, Gorky found that picture forgotten in a drawer
0:50:22 > 0:50:25'in his father's house in Watertown.
0:50:25 > 0:50:30'He took the photo back, left his father and changed his name.
0:50:30 > 0:50:32'He was 21 years old.'
0:50:34 > 0:50:37He told me they had to leave their farm
0:50:37 > 0:50:40with his mother and his sister, Vartoosh.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44They had to walk all the way to Yerevan.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47Torn apart, torn from home,
0:50:47 > 0:50:49walking around Mount Ararat.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55But there were enormous lots of them, of Armenian refugees
0:50:55 > 0:50:59from Turkish Armenia over the border into Russia.
0:51:00 > 0:51:03Gorky always said his mother died of starvation.
0:51:06 > 0:51:11'The only written account by Gorky of his experience of genocide
0:51:11 > 0:51:14'is a poem he wrote in 1944.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18'"The song of the cardinal, liver
0:51:18 > 0:51:22"Mirrors that have not caught reflection.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25'"The aggressively heraldic branches.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27'"The saliva of the hungry man
0:51:27 > 0:51:31'"whose face is painted with white chalk."
0:51:34 > 0:51:37'We went in search for Gorky's memories.
0:51:37 > 0:51:42'This monastery had been in his mother's family for centuries.'
0:51:42 > 0:51:48I think down there looks very like it.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51Do you see? That tiny little island is just there.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55The other picture, the mountains don't look like that.
0:51:55 > 0:52:00Natasha, there are not many big stones everywhere.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04And here there are no mountains behind us that are that shape.
0:52:05 > 0:52:09- Well, let's just walk down this little path...- Around the bend.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12Why don't you go on ahead and explore?
0:52:12 > 0:52:14I'll wait for Matthew.
0:52:20 > 0:52:23Matthew! There's some tombstones.
0:52:25 > 0:52:27WHISTLE
0:52:27 > 0:52:30WHISTLING
0:52:30 > 0:52:33All of your ancestors, my angel...
0:52:33 > 0:52:36This is probably an ancestor of yours.
0:52:36 > 0:52:44This is where my ancestors lived from 300 after Christ was born,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47till when it was all destroyed.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50I think it's here. The curve of the land is exactly the same.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53Gosh! It does look like it!
0:52:53 > 0:52:55- It looks just like it.- Yes.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59If you stand here, Matthew, come and look.
0:53:02 > 0:53:05'Gorky's mother often walked to this family church
0:53:05 > 0:53:08'from her husband's village of Khorkom,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11'the last on the promontory.'
0:53:12 > 0:53:17It's funny to think that so many ferocious things went on here.
0:53:17 > 0:53:22The thing about Gorky's memories of Khorkom
0:53:22 > 0:53:25is that they're very close to the ground.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29You can almost feel that he's a child looking up at these things.
0:53:29 > 0:53:34The gardens are these mysterious magical places with shapes.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46'"The walls of the house in Russia where I spent my childhood
0:53:46 > 0:53:49'"were made of clay blocks, deprived of all detail
0:53:49 > 0:53:52'"with a roof of rough timber."'
0:53:57 > 0:53:59Gosh! How beautiful!
0:54:01 > 0:54:03Incredible.
0:54:05 > 0:54:10'"I was taken away from my little village when I was five years old.
0:54:10 > 0:54:15'"Yet, all my vital memories are of these first years.
0:54:15 > 0:54:20'"These were the days when I smelled the bread, I saw my first red poppy,
0:54:20 > 0:54:23'"the moon, the innocent seeing.
0:54:23 > 0:54:28'"Since then, these memories have become iconography,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31'"the shapes, even the colours.
0:54:31 > 0:54:36'"Millstone, red earth, yellow wheat field, apricots.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39'"On the road to the spring, my father had a little garden
0:54:39 > 0:54:44'"with a few apple trees which had retired from giving fruit.
0:54:44 > 0:54:46'"There was a ground constantly in shade,
0:54:46 > 0:54:50'"where grew incalculable amounts of wild carrots
0:54:50 > 0:54:54'"and porcupines had made their nests.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58'"But from where came all the shadows and constant battle
0:54:58 > 0:55:01'"like the lances of Paolo Uccello's painting?"'
0:55:05 > 0:55:09'The village where Gorky was born was called Khorkom.
0:55:09 > 0:55:14'It was left empty in 1915 and in 1918, Kurds took it over.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18'They rebuilt it using stones from the Armenian houses.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21'Only one building remained intact.'
0:55:24 > 0:55:26Beautiful!
0:55:26 > 0:55:29- Here, they had the fire. - HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:55:29 > 0:55:32Then the smoke went up there.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35- They lived here. It wasn't a barn. - No, they lived.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38They stored the grain there.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41- The fire was here. - It's a magnificent room.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45And look at that beautiful goat!
0:55:45 > 0:55:49- Look at the cobwebs.- I know.- They add to the marvellousness of it all.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51He was small when he left.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54Everything would have looked different
0:55:54 > 0:55:56than if he'd come back as an adult.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59Everything was done from memory. He never came back.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04But he also, when he was in Virginia and he saw the weeds,
0:56:04 > 0:56:09he was very excited by the weeds so he recognised bits of here
0:56:09 > 0:56:13in other rural places, like Virginia.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16He could make comparisons from his memories
0:56:16 > 0:56:18and his observations.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21Maybe it was that moment of comparison,
0:56:21 > 0:56:26that exciting vertigo of your memory and what you're observing,
0:56:26 > 0:56:30that moment which isn't quite the same, but almost.
0:56:35 > 0:56:37This is so grand!
0:56:37 > 0:56:41It may have been a mud hut, but look where it was!
0:56:41 > 0:56:44It's unbelievably grand.
0:56:44 > 0:56:47Look at the shadows on the...
0:56:48 > 0:56:52The shadows on those low mountains, those foothills.
0:57:06 > 0:57:11'Here was something my grandfather had NOT lied about.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15'This was the view from his house.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18'However brutish his circumstances,
0:57:18 > 0:57:21'from the first moment of consciousness,
0:57:21 > 0:57:25'he was surrounded by supreme beauty.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28'On beauty, he pinned his lifelong perceptions.
0:57:28 > 0:57:33'Beauty was his guide and the talisman he left his descendants.
0:57:34 > 0:57:39'Now, I look at my grandfather's paintings and I ask different questions.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43'An imaginary conversation can begin.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48'The white noise has gone and we share some memories.'
0:57:50 > 0:57:53When I look back, I see him
0:57:53 > 0:57:59as this whole thing that he'd erected to protect himself
0:57:59 > 0:58:03had been broken by the bad luck of his operation,
0:58:03 > 0:58:07the slowness of his arrival -
0:58:07 > 0:58:13because he wanted to arrive in the United States.
0:58:13 > 0:58:18And look how long it's taken him to get as much applause as he now has.
0:58:39 > 0:58:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd