Attributed to Michael (Corinne) West, no coa, private collection, medium: mixed media, measurements: 25"WX32"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. Corinne Michelle West was born in Chicago, Illinois.She attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before moving to the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1925.She graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1930.[4] West – on June 26, 1930, at the Wesley Chapel in Cincinnati – married theatre actor Randolph Nelson (1909–1978).West moved to New York in 1932.She began to study painting with Hans Hoffman at the Art Student's League of New York and commercial art at the Traphagen School of Fashion.After graduating and leaving the teachings of Hofmann, in 1934, West began studying under Raphael Soyer.She was Arshile Gorky's muse and probably his lover, although she refused to marry him when he proposed several times. They shared a passion for art and visited museums and galleries together.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.