The art of Arshile Gorky burns through the shadows of his life. The first retrospective survey of his work since 1981 is now on view through Jan. 10 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and features 180 paintings, sculptures and drawings drawn from Gorky's entire career, from his early engagements with impressionism and cubism to his late, surrealist works.

Gorky's life was marred by personal and national catastrophe. Born around 1904 near Lake Van in an Armenian province of Ottoman Turkey, Gorky grew up in rural, deeply traditional society. His father and several members of his family emigrated to the U.S. in 1908; in 1915, his family was driven by Turkish troops, along with thousands of other Armenians, out of their homes in what is now known as the Armenian genocide. His mother starved to death in 1919; shortly after that, he and his sister managed to join the rest of their family in the U.S.

Gorky's formal art education was spotty but he educated himself by reading, going to museums and, as his early works show, patiently teaching himself the techniques of Cezanne and moving on to the abstractions of Picasso and Joan Mirò, Fernand Léger and Giorgio de Chirico, looking deeply at old masters and emerging artists.

Examples of these works — a very early impressionist Boston scene and landscapes very much in the spirit of Cezanne, form the first part of the exhibit. The two versions of "The Artist and his Mother," painted from 1926 to 36 and based on a photograph, are masterpieces of technique and portraiture. Also in the exhibit are two surviving murals he painted in 1936 for a Newark Airport building, supported by what would become the Works Progress Administration.

The Great Depression hit Gorky hard, but the influx of European artists brought to the U.S. by the rise of fascism led to Gorky's engagement with the surrealist movement and the creation of his greatest paintings.

The fulcrum of the exhibit features an astonishing array of colorful paintings in which heavy applications of paint have given way to thin washes and calligraphic, freely painted lines. These works include "Water of the Flowery Mill," and drawings and book illustrations combining the playful and morbid as only surrealism can, hung in a central room painted with a jagged pattern. These paintings also reflect his renewed engagement with landscape painting after he married Agnes Magruder in 1941 and spent time on her family's farm in Virginia.

"The Liver is Cock's Comb," which the curators have positioned as the fulcrum of the exhibition, shows a more violent side — nature with teeth and claws, forms ripping each other apart.

Gorky's final years were difficult. A 1946 fire destroyed his barn studio in Connecticut, and he had to undergo an operation for rectal cancer later that year. The final part of the exhibit is devoted to paintings from this period, including the powerful "Agony." His wife left him in 1948 and he committed suicide shortly after.

As museum CEO Timothy Rub points out in a press release, "Gorky built upon the achievements of the early modern artists he greatly admired and broke new ground during a remarkable moment to become an inspiration to a new generation of American painters." These included abstract expressionists Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. In the end, the impact of this exhibition is considerable: an astonishing, irrepressible imagination continually creating its own visual vocabulary, rising again and again from the ashes.

"Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective"

Cont. through Jan. 10

Reg. hours: Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Special holiday hours:Mon. 10 a.m.-5 p.m; Jan 1, 10 a.m.-5p.m.

$16 adults, $14 seniors, $12 students with ID and children 13-18, free for children 12 and under. (Pay-what-you-can first Sunday of each month)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th St., Phila. 215-763-8100. www.philamuseum.org