Jack Tworkov (15 August 1900 – 4 September 1982) was an American
abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of th ...
painter.
Biography
Yakov Tworkovsky, more commonly known as Jack Tworkov, was born in
Biała Podlaska
Biała Podlaska ( la, Alba Ducalis) is a city in eastern Poland with 56,498 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is situated in the Lublin Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the capital of Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1998). ...
on the border between Poland and the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
. Because of the growing unrest in Europe leading up to World War I, his father, who was a tailor, immigrated to the United States in the early 1910s to set up the family tailoring business in New York City. Following his father in 1913 Yakov along with his mother and younger sister travelled to New York through Ellis Island. Upon arriving to America, Yakov and his sister Schenehaia both changed their names. Yakov became Jack, and Schenehaia became Janice Biala. At the time he moved to America Jack was still attending school, so upon his arrival to New York he was immediately put into the American public school system. Jack Tworkov appeared to be uninterested in painting; he didn't attend classes or go to school for art, rather he had attended
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
to become a writer. He continued his pursuit of writing until his persistent sister convinced him to attend classes at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stud ...
. The League acted as a catalyst for Jack's art career, sparking his interest in the field art. Two of his major influences early on were painters Cézanne and
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primar ...
. Their influence along with his sisters prompted him to study art at the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
and
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stud ...
Zuni Maud
Zuni Maud (born Yitzhok Moyed; 1891 – 1956) was a Yiddish-American cartoonist, satirist, calligrapher and co-founder of the first Yiddish-language puppet theatre in the United States.
Early life and education
Zuni Maud (זוני מאוד) was b ...
to be set and costume designers for Maurice Schwartz's production of Abraham Goldfaden's ''Di Kishefmacherin''. They created puppets for the show and decided to launch a puppet theatre. The trio expanded their early work during a summer spent in the
Catskills
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas ...
, at a summer home of left wing painters and writers, who offered opinions. In 1925 the trio opened the Modjacot (a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words Tworkov dropped out very soon, and the amalgam name became Modicot.
In 1929 America entered into the great depression; following the economic collapse President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
initiated the
Work Projects Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...
. Tworkov, being an aspiring artist, sought employment as a member of the Federal Art Project division of the Work Projects Administration met, which is where he met one of the first artists responsible for bring
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
to the attention of the American public,
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter ...
. This is the time in which Tworkov's art begins to take on the early signs of
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
style. Tworkov and de Koonig met many other abstract painters, and together with a group of abstract expressionists including
Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...
,
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
and
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a ho ...
, founded the New York School. Many of the people involved in creating the New York School including Tworkov were also involved with the creating of the 8th Street Club, which was responsible for hosting the
9th Street Art Exhibition
The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).
, which was largely regarded as the event in which the New York School style was truly exposed to the American people.
During his lifetime, Tworkov taught at several institutions, including the American University,
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educatio ...
,
Queens College
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...
,
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...
,
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
, and
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
where he was the chairman of the Art Department from 1963 to 1969. As chairman, Tworkov invited known artists to teach, including
Al Held
Al Held (October 12, 1928 – July 27, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings. As an artist, multiple stylistic changes occurred throughout his career, ho ...
,
Knox Martin
Knox Martin (February 12, 1923 – May 15, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist.
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, he studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1946 until 1950. He was one of the leading members of the N ...
,
George Wardlaw
George Anthony Wardlaw (born 11 June 2004) is a professional Australian rules footballer who was drafted to play for North Melbourne in the Australian Football League (AFL) in the 2022 draft.
Early life
Wardlaw completed his secondary educati ...
, and Bernard Chaet. Among the students of that era were
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very ...
Richard Serra
Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration of ...
,
Nancy Graves
Nancy Graves (December 23, 1939 – October 21, 1995, in Massachusetts) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and sometime- filmmaker known for her focus on natural phenomena like camels or maps of the Moon. Her works are included in ...
, Rackstraw Downes, and Brice Marden.
Tworkov is regarded as an important and influential artist, along with Rothko, de Kooning,
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
,
Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert M ...
, and Pollock, whose gestural paintings of the early 1950s formed the basis for the abstract expressionist movement in America. Major work from this period is characterized by the use of gestural brush strokes in flame-like color. His work transitioned during the mid-1960s. Straight lines and geometric patterns characterize his later art work. ''Wedding Flags'' of 1965, included in the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY, is a transitional painting that combines both abstract expressionism and geometric abstraction.
Despite being credited as one of the founders of the New York School, Tworkov's later works of art diverged from this style of painting. After the 1950s one can see from Tworkov's art that he takes a more geometric approach to his work; this is easily identifiable by his artwork specifically Indian Red Series #2 (1979). Tworkov's experiments with geometric shapes were largely inspired by basic geometry and number systems, as well as the well known
Fibonacci number
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a integer sequence, sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start ...
sequence.
What was formerly the UBS Art Gallery in New York exhibited five decades of Tworkov's work in the 2009 show ''Against Extremes'', "a tantalizing historical survey" charting everything from his de Kooning roots to his omnipresent "dream of freedom".John Yau, Jack Tworkov: "Against Extremes: Five Decades of Painting", ''Brooklyn Rail,'' October 2009
Tworkov died in 1982 in
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Provin ...
. He was 82.
See also
*
Art movement
An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defi ...
*
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
Action painting
Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...