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Jack Tworkov

Jack Tworkov

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  • Biography
    View works. Jack Tworkov, Q4-72 #1, 1972
    Q4-72 #1, 1972
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    Jack Tworkov was born in Biala, Poland. He emigrated with his mother and sister, the artist Janice Biala, to the United States in 1913. He graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1923. He studied studio art at the National Academy of Design from 1923 to 1924 and at The Art Students League from 1925 to 1926. In 1929, he began painting year-round in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He taught at Black Mountain College in 1952 in Asheville, North Carolina. He served as Chairman of the Art Department at the School of Art and Architecture at Yale University, where he taught from 1963 to 1969, received his Master of Fine Arts in Privatum in 1963, and retired as Professor of Painting, Emeritus in 1969. He remained active artistically, intellectually, and professionally until the last months of his life and died in his home in Provincetown.

    The artist has been the subject of monographic museum exhibitions, such as Jack Tworkov: A Retrospective Exhibition (1964), organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; traveled to Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, Pasadena Art Museum, CA, San Francisco Museum of Art, and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. Jack Tworkov: Recent Paintings (1971), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Jack Tworkov: Fifteen Years of Painting (1982), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Jack Tworkov: Paintings 1928–1982 (1987), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

    Recent and significant exhibitions include Jack Tworkov: The Accident of Choice, The Artist at Black Mountain College 1952 (2011), Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center, Asheville, NC and Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes/Five Decades (2009), UBS Art Gallery, New York

    He is represented in many museum collections worldwide such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA; The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London, England; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

    He was awarded The Skowhegan Medal Medal for Painting, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1974); Andrew Carnegie Visiting Professor of Art, Cooper Union (1975); Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, College Art Association of America (1976); and Member, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1981).
     
    In 2010, the artist was the subject of Jack Tworkov: A Catalogue Raisonné Project (panOpticon), the definitive resource of the artist’s paintings, drawings, and prints and the first catalogue of its kind to be released free to the public online.
    Download Artist's CV (PDF, opens in a new tab.)
  • Works
    • Jack Tworkov, X on Circle in the Square (Q4-81 #2), 1981
      X on Circle in the Square (Q4-81 #2), 1981
    • geometric abstract painting
      Indian Red Series #4, 1979
    • Jack Tworkov, Q3-74 #1 (Provincetown), 1974
      Q3-74 #1 (Provincetown), 1974
    • Jack Tworkov, Q4-72 #1, 1972
      Q4-72 #1, 1972
    • gestural abstract work on paper
      R.A on P. #2, 1972
    • gestural abstract work on paper
      Study for "To Stefan Wolpe", 1959
    • abstract collage
      Untitled (Collage) , 1958
    • abstract Collage Work
      Untitled Collage (September 7, 1958), 1958
    • gestural abstract work on paper
      Untitled (Abstract Drawing) , c.1952
    • gestural abstract work on paper
      Untitled (Study for Athene), c.1949
  • Exhibitions
    • installation view

      Small is Beautiful

      2nd Floor Gallery February 6 - April 4, 2025
      Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present Small is Beautiful, an exhibition of small-scale works by 22 artists, both familiar and new faces to the gallery’s program. The exhibition features...
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    • installation view

      A Little Touch of Grace

      September 18 - November 8, 2024
      Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present “A Little Touch of Grace,” a group exhibition of works by Farid Haddad, John McLaughlin, Richard Pousette-Dart, Harvey Quaytman, Hedda Sterne, Anne Truitt,...
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    • Jack Tworkov

      Jack Tworkov

      Drawings 1948-1981, 2nd Floor February 16 - March 25, 2023
      'To reduce everything to a piece of paper and pencil I think is just marvelous; it is one of the highest forms of art.' Jack Tworkov, 1981 Van Doren Waxter...
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    • installation view

      Sewn Burnt Folded Drawn Painted Collaged

      Special Presentation: 3rd Floor January 12 - February 26, 2022
      Caetano de Almeida Marsha Cottrell Richard Diebenkorn Moira Dryer Jeronimo Elespe Robert Mangold Harvey Quaytman Alan Shields Anne Truitt Jack Tworkov
      Read more
    • Jack Tworkov

      Jack Tworkov

      Tworkov: Towards Nirvana / Works from the 70s: 2nd Floor January 14 - March 20, 2021
      “The abstract painting is more nearly the true icon of our time even if it’s only at times the icon of despair, or nothingness…abstract art is perhaps the nirvana towards...
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    • Brooks, Diebenkorn, Goldberg, Sterne, Tworkov: Works from the 1950s

      Brooks, Diebenkorn, Goldberg, Sterne, Tworkov: Works from the 1950s

      Special Presentation: 3rd Floor November 16, 2019 - January 16, 2020
      Read more
    • Pre-Post

      Pre-Post

      American Abstraction 1940s - 60s October 11 - November 11, 2006
      Baziotes • Bluhm • Brooks • DeFeo • De Kooning • Diebenkorn • Francis Frankenthaler • Gorky • Guston • Held • Hofmann • Kamrowski • Krasner Mitchell • Motherwell...
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  • News
  • Publications
    • Jack Tworkov

      Jack Tworkov

      Drawings 1948-1981 2023
      Book, 64 pages
      Read more
    • cover of a book

      Jack Tworkov

      Tworkov: Towards Nirvana / Works from the 70s 2021
      Book, Softcover, 76 pages
      ISBN: 978-1-7325933-3-6
      Read more
  • Art fairs
    • installation view of an art fair booth with various artworks

      The Art Show | ADAA

      November 1 - 5, 2023
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    • Independent 20th Century

      Independent 20th Century

      September 7 - October 10, 2023
      Read more
    • image of an art fair booth with various items hung on the walls

      Frieze Masters

      October 12 - 16, 2022
      Works Available By: Max Bill Richard Diebenkorn Tom Fairs Hans Hofmann Willem de Kooning John McLaughlin Vera Molnár Camille Pissarro Ken Price Harvey Quaytman Pierre-Auguste...
      Read more
    • Dallas Art Fair

      Dallas Art Fair

      April 21 - 24, 2022
      Caetano de Almeida James Brooks Marsha Cottrell Richard Diebenkorn Jeronimo Elespe Jessie Henson Hans Hofmann Volker Hüller Robert Motherwell Joshua Nathanson Evan Nesbit Harvey Quaytman...
      Read more
    • The Art Show

      The Art Show

      February 27 - March 3, 2020
      Read more
  • Press
    • Jack Tworkov: Towards Nirvana / Works from the 70s

      By David Rhodes, The Brooklyn Rail, February 6, 2021
    • Editors’ Picks: 16 Events for Your Art Calendar This Week, From David Hammons at the Drawing Center to Duke Riley on the Great Molasses Flood

      by Caroline Goldstein, Artnet News, February 1, 2021
    • ARTnews in Brief: Van Doren Waxter Now Represents Estate of Jack Tworkov—and More from June 2, 2020

      by Maximilíano Durón, Alex Greenberger, Claire Selvin, Tessa Solomon, ARTnews, June 2, 2020
    • Jack Tworkov: Becoming Himself

      by Carter Ratcliff, Art & Antiques, May 1, 2017
    • The Anti-Expressionist: Jack Tworkov's Paradigm Shift

      by Thomas Micchelli, Hyperallergic, September 5, 2015
    • Mira Schor and Jason Andrew with Phong Bui

      by Phong Bui, The Brooklyn Rail , October 5, 2009
    • Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes, Five Decades of Paintings

      by Jason Panero, The New Criterion, September 1, 2009
    • Jack Tworkov

      by Harry Cooper, Artforum, April 1, 2000
    • The Late Paintings of Jack Tworkov

      by Kenneth Baker, Arts Magazine, April 1, 1985
    • An Interview with Jack Tworkov

      by Steven Kroeter, Art in America, November 1, 1982
    • Jack Tworkov: A Retrospective View, Part Two: The System Works

      by Lois Fichner-Rathus, Arts Magazine, October 1, 1982
    • Jack Tworkov: A Retrospective View, Part One : From Gesture to Geometry

      by Lois Fichner-Rathus, Arts Magazine, September 1, 1982
    • Art: Two Exhibitions of Late Tworkov Work

      by John Russell, The New York Times, April 9, 1982
    • Jack Tworkov

      by Steven Madoff, Artforum, August 31, 1977
    • Jack Tworkov

      by April Kingsley, Art International, April 20, 1974
    • On My Outlook as a Painter: A Memoir Leonardo, Vol., 7pp. 111-116

      By Jack Tworkov, Pergamon Press, January 1, 1974
    • The Indian Summer of Jack Tworkov

      by Kasha Linville Gula, Art in America, October 1, 1973
    • Quartered and Dawn

      by Douglas Crimp, Art News, March 1, 1971
    • An Interview with Jack Tworkov

      by Phyllis Tuchman, Artforum, January 1, 1971
    • Tworkov Paints a Picture

      by Fairfield Porter, Art News , May 1, 1953
    • Reviews and previews

      by Thomas B. Hess, Art News, November 1, 1948

Van Doren Waxter, 23 East 73rd Street New York, NY 10021

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