Jack Tworkov (15 August 1900 – 4 September 1982) was an American

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painter.

Early life and education

Yakov Tworkovsky, was born in

Biała Podlaska Biała Podlaska (; ) is a city in the Lublin Voivodeship in eastern Poland with 56,498 inhabitants It is the capital of Biała Podlaska County, although the city is not part of the county (it constitutes a separate city county). The city lies on ...

on the border between Poland and the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. His father was a tailor who immigrated to the United States in the early 1910s to set up the family tailoring business in New York City. In 1913, Tworkov, his mother, and younger sister travelled to New York through Ellis Island. Upon arriving to America, both children changed their names, Yakov became Jack, and his sister Schenehaia became Janice Biala. Tworkov enrolled in the American public school system. Tworkov was initially uninterested in painting and instead attended

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

to become a writer. His sister encouraged him to attend classes at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

. The League proved influential for Tworkov'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 arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

. 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, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

and

Career

In 1924, he joined friends Yosl Cutler and Zuni Maud 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 and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...

, at a summer home of left wing painters and writers, who offered opinions. In 1925 the trio opened the Modjacot (a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of their names) Spiel Theatre, the first Yiddish puppet theatre in America. Tworkov dropped out, 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), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

initiated the

Work Projects Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

. 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 in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

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. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

. This is the time in which Tworkov's art begins to take on the early signs of

style. Tworkov and de Koonig met many other abstract painters, and together with a group of abstract expressionists including Arshile Gorky,

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

and

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

, 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, 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 The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The coll ...

, Queens College,

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

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, George Wardlaw, 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 photorealism, photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits ...

, Jennifer Bartlett,

Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...

Nancy Graves Nancy Graves (December 23, 1939 – October 21, 1995) 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 many public collection ...

, Rackstraw Downes, and Brice Marden. In 1970, he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

for Fine Arts. Tworkov is regarded as an important and influential artist, along with Rothko, de Kooning, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, 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 sequence is a Integer sequence, sequence in which each element is the sum of the two elements that precede it. Numbers that are part of the Fibonacci sequence are known as Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted . Many w ...

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, Provi ...

. He was 82.

References

''Brooklyn Rail,'' October 2009
Official Website for the Estate of Jack Tworkov''ART USA NOW''
Ed. by Lee Nordness;Vol.1, (The Viking Press, Inc., 1963.) pp. 90–93

* ttp://www.alexandergray.com/artists/jack-tworkov/. Alexander Gray Associates

Artnet

Catalogs

*Edward Bryant
''Jack Tworkov: Whitney Museum of American Art''
Publisher:

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

''Jack Tworkov, Fifteen Years of Painting : Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York''
Publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, NY 1982. , * Richard Armstrong
''Jack Tworkov : paintings 1928-1982''
Publisher: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, PA © 1987. * Elizabeth Frank; Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY ''Jack Tworkov: Paintings from 1930 to 1981'' © 1991. *Alston Conley; Boston College Museum of Art, Chestnut Hill, MA; ''Jack Tworkov 1935-1982: An Abstract Expressionist Inventing Form'' © 1994 *Jack Tworkov; Mitchell-Innes & Nash and Ameringer Howard Yohe Gallery
''Jack Tworkov : red, white and blue''
Publisher: Mitchell-Innes & Nash : Ameringer/Howard/Yohe, 2002. , *Debra Bricker Balken; Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, IL ''Jack Tworkov: Early Paintings and Drawings'' © 2006.

External links

Jack Tworkov in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tworkov, Jack 1900 births 1982 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters Abstract expressionist artists American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish American painters Polish emigrants to the United States 20th-century Polish painters 20th-century American male artists Art Students League of New York alumni 20th-century American printmakers Polish male painters 20th-century American Jews

Early life and education

Career

See also

References

Catalogs

External links