Attributed to Corinne Michelle West, private collection, no coa medium: oil measurements:22"wx27"h framed, mint condition Biography: Corinne Michelle West was an American painter; she also used the names Mikael and Michael West. She was an Abstract Expressionist. West's paintings in the mid-1930s through the mid-1940s were Cubist and Neo-Cubist in style. In 1936 she had her first solo exhibition, at the Rochester Art Club; also in 1936, she had begun to go by Mikael to obtain better opportunities, and after Arshile Gorky told her that the name "Corinne" sounded like that of a "debutante's daughter."Gorky's suggestion however, was based on a real prejudice against women in the art world, such as with George Sand and George Elliot. In 1941 she began to use the name Michael, which she used in her regular life as well as her painting.In 1946, after returning to New York from Rochester, she exhibited at the Pinacotheca Gallery alongside Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb. West – on June 30, 1948, in Manhattan – married filmmaker Francis Lee; they divorced in 1960.West was one of the few female members of the New York Art School movement.[7] In creating her work, West was inspired by the existentialist writer Henri Bergson's theory of 'living energy' and was guided by her instinctive creativity and passion. During the 1950s, she was committed to action painting, as shown in works like Space Poetry (1956). She exhibited in Manhattan's prestigious Stable Gallery in 1953, and had a solo show in 1957 at the Uptown Gallery in New York City.In 1958 she had a one-woman show at the Domino Gallery in Georgetown, Washington, D.C