Born in Chicago in 1930, Ron Gorchov lived and worked in New York City since the early 1950s. Following a first solo show at New York’s Tibor de Nagy Gallery in 1960, Gorchov has since exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S.1., Queens Museum of Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, and Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno among other institutions.

Gorchov was part of a group of artists working in Manhattan in the 1960s and 70s that was responding to the concept of "Action Painting" as defined by Harold Rosenberg, a concept that purported to demolish pictorial conventions and held as suspect the notions of facility and harmonious composition. His work shows an affinity with that of Arshile Gorky (Gorchov was at one point affiliated with Gorky's mentor John D. Graham), Joel Shapiro and Richard Tuttle. He was a mentor to Willem de Kooning and friendly with Mark Rothko. The artist died in 2020.