The Liver is the Cock’s Comb

Loose, organic shapes drift across a tan field, their outlines curling and swelling in white, red, yellow, blue, and brown. Nothing resolves into a recognizable object; instead the forms seem to float and press against one another, suspended in open space. The painting, titled The Liver is the Cocks Comb, was made in 1944 by Arshile Gorky using oil paint, and it is held today at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, where it came to the collection as a gift. Gorky, an Armenian-American painter who lived from 1904 to 1948, worked within abstract expressionism and action painting, shaping forms that pushed abstract art toward new emotional territory. Looking closely, the tan ground stays visible between the biomorphic shapes, letting the reds and yellows stand out while the softer whites and browns settle quietly behind them, giving the whole surface a sense of restless, uneven movement.