Jack Tworkov: Drawings 1948-1981

Self Portrait, 1965 Charcoal on paper

22 1/8 x 17 in (56.2 x 43.2 cm)

Initialed and dated lower right: "JT / 65" (JT 1270)

Jack Tworkov Drawings 1948-1981

Untitled (Surrealist Drawing) , c.1945-48

Gouache and pencil on paper

22 1/2 x 28 1/2 in (57.1 x 72.4 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1456)

Untitled (Abstract Forms) ,

11 3/4 x 8 3/4 in (29.8 x 22.2 cm)

Unsigned (JT 298)

c.1948-50

Watercolor and ink on paper

Untitled (Abstract Forms), c. 1948-50

Watercolor and

11 3/4 x 8 7/8 in (29.8 x 22.5 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1389)

ink on paper

Drawing was always important to me. I always had the highest opinion of drawing because of what you can do with the simplest possible medium. To reduce everything to a piece of paper and pencil I think is just marvelous; it is one of the highest forms of art.

Untitled (Abstract Landscape), c.1949

Watercolor and ink on paper

12 3/4 x 16 in 32.4 x 40.6 cm

Unsigned (JT 335)

Untitled (Sketchbook), c. 1950-78 Ink and pencil sketchbook 10 x 8 x 1 in 25.4 x 20.3 x 2.5 cm (JT 1467)

Untitled (House of The Sun), c.1952 Oil and pencil on paper 25 1/2 x 16 in 64.8 x 40.6 cm (JT 345)

11

Unsigned (JT

Study for "House of the Sun Series", c.1952

Ink on paper

x 10 in (27.9 x 25.4 cm)

284)

Untitled (Abstract Drawing), c.1952

Ink on paper 24 x 18 in ( 61 x 45.7 cm)

Unsigned (JT 427)

A painter like anybody else has many ideas, many emotions, many pulls and directions. The drawings are more of a diary of these changes and pulls because in the paintings you tend to stay with elements of the past. In drawings you can still strike out in wildly different directions.

Untitled (Portrait of a Man) (CFD), C. 1954

Charcoal on paper

25 1/2 x 19 in

64.8 x 48.3 cm

Unsigned

(JT 412)

Untitled (Studio Still Life, Provincetown), c. 1954

Graphite

11 3/4 x 9 in (29.8 x 22.9 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1396)

on paper

Unsigned (JT 1462)

Study for "Queen III", C. 1957 Pen on paper

14 x 17 in (35.6 x 43.2 cm)

Untitled (Seated Figures), c.1958

Pencil on paper

14 x 17 in (35.6 x 43.2 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1434)

Untitled (Reclining Figure), 1960

Charcoal on paper

19 x 24 1/2 in (48.3 x 62.2 cm)

Initialed and dated lower right: "JT / 7-4-60" (JT 796)

During the Barrier Series I also limited the palette to two colors. My attitude towards color has always been not to make beautiful color -- I think of color primarily as structural. I have been against ingratiating color -- if a color becomes too beautiful I generally reject it, if the color takes the eye too much then you lose sight of the general structure.

Untitled (Drawing for Barrier Series), c. 1960

Charcoal and oil pastel on paper

13 3/4 x 11 in (34.9 x 27.9 cm)

Unsigned (JT 980)

Study for Red and Green with a Yellow Stripe, c.1961

Oilstick on paper 24 1/8 x 18 in 61.3 x 45.7 cm (JT 347)

One aspect of my drawing is that so much of it anticipates my painting. An enormous number of drawings precede my paintings, partly because I feel more free to experiment with the drawing than I do with the canvas.

24 x 18 in (61 x 45.7 cm)

Initialed and dated lower right: "JT / 61" (JT 289)

Untitled (LP), 1961

Pencil and liquitex on paper

One-minute Drawings of a Model, 1962–63

Charcoal on paper

24 x 18 in (61 x 45.7 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1466)

Pattern Study, c.1970

Watercolor and pencil on paper

12 x 9 in (30.5 x 22.9 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1371)

Pattern Study (Bursts), c.1970

Watercolor and pencil on paper

12 x 9 in (30.5 x 22.9 cm)

Unsigned (JT 1373)

I was really fascinated with the idea of surface that came out of addition, an accumulation of strokes rather than painting flat. The stroke represents a kind of rhythmic note -- similar to a beat in music, even the drawings are made up of short strokes.

I have always been involved with the quality of the stroking. While monochromatic, my surface is articulated and not uniform. Building a surface by addition means a great deal to me -- I’ve always felt Cézanne’s paintings build up the same way, if you look at Cézanne painting he could have stopped at many different points -- they would have been slightly different paintings but they would have been just as complete. The additions add up to various kinds of interest.

DWG #9 - 70 (CH #8), 1970

Charcoal on paper

25 1/2 x 19 1/2 in (64.8 x 49.5 cm)

Initial and dated lower right: "JT / 70"; Titled lower left: "Dwg #-9 - 70 / ch.# 8"

(JT 198)

D. A. on P. #2 (Q1-73), 1973

Acrylic on paper

30 3/8 x 23 1/8 in (77.2 x 58.7 cm)

Titled and dated lower left: "D. A. on P. #2 / Q1-73" (JT 865)

Untitled (Totem Gestures), c.1973 Ink and watercolor on paper 15 x 11 1/2 in 38.1 x 29.2 cm

Unsigned (JT 915)

Unsigned (JT

Untitled (Totem Gestures), C. 1973 Ink and watercolor on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/2 (38.7 x 29.2 cm)

916)

39 Continuous Knight Moves (NY 12-31-74 #7), 1974

Graphite and colored pencil on paper

28 3/4 x 20 in (73 x 50.8 cm)

Titled and inscribed lower left: "39 Continuous Knight Moves / Move in straight lines as far as the board will allow. Make right angle turns when possible. No move into the same square twice.";

Initialed and dated lower right: "JT / 74 / NY 12-31-74 #7 (2nd v. of #6) (JT 240)

In the last ten years I have been involved with a schematic division of the surface into horizontals and verticals with diagonals bisecting the rectangles. I make a preliminary grid with every possible diagonal. I then reduce the possibilities and use images which can be confined within the grid, limiting the infinite variations. I look at something and see whether it appeals to my eye; it has nothing to do with the intellect. I know that a slight change would make a tremendous difference, so I make another sketch of a variation; sometimes the change is in the actual shapes, sometimes in the same shapes treated differently in terms of color. I have no scheme for the color -- it is entirely intuitive.

K Q1-74 Colored Pencil #6, 1974

Colored pencil and graphite on board

20 1/8 x 28 3/4 in (51.1 x 73 cm)

Titled lower left: K.Q1-74.Colored Pencil #6

Signed and dated lower right: JT '74 (JT 1454)

30 Continuous Knight Moves, 1975

Colored pencil on paper (Schoellers Parole)

28 3/4 x 20 in (73 x 50.8 cm)

Titled lower left: 30 Continuous Knight Moves

Initialed and dated lower right: JT / 75

Inscribed with date lower right: NY 4.16.75 #9 (JT 1262)

Colored Crayon #1, 1976

Crayon on paper

26 1/8 x 40 1/2 in (66.4 x 102.9 cm)

Titled lower left: Colored Crayon #1

Dated lower right: 12.31.76 (JT 1460)

19 1/8 x 25 1/2 in (48.6 x 64.8 cm)

Dated and number lower left: 76 #7

Inscribed and numbered lower right: 1.5.6. / #7 (JT 1455)

CH #7, 1976

Graphite and charcoal on paper

Untitled (Study for Painting), 1978 Charcoal on paper

25 1/2 x 19 3/4 in (64.8 x 50.2 cm)

Initialed and date lower right: JT '78 (JT 1311)

My interest in the Fibonaci progression relates to a subtle kind of symmetry. For instance if you say 3.5.8. (the Fibonaci progression) or 8.13.21 and you divide the canvas symmetrically into 8 and 8 with one 8 divided into 3 and 5 you have symmetry but not an apparent symmetry.

Untitled (Study for Paintings), C. 1978-80

Colored pencil and graphite on paper

17 x 22 in (43.2 x 55.9 cm)

Inscribed lower right: 1.236, .3819 or .382, 80 (JT 1458)

18 1/4 x 12 1/2 in (46.4 x 31.8 cm)

Dated lower right: 1.24.81 (JT 1465)

Study for "Roman Series, 1981 Pencil on vellum

18 1/4 x 12 1/2 in (46.4 x 31.8 cm)

Dated lower right: 2.16.81 (JT 1464)

Study for "Roman Series", 1981

Pencil on vellum

13 1/4 x 34 1/2 in (33.7 x 87.6 cm)

Dated lower right: 2.21.81 (JT 1463)

Untitled (Roman Woman), 1981

Graphite on paper

Untitled (Abstract Forms), 1981 Pastel and charcoal on paper

25 x 19 in (63.5 x 48.3 cm)

Dated lower right: 6.8.81 (JT 1459)

Untitled (Abstract Forms), 1981 Pastel and charcoal on paper

26 x 20 in (66 x 50.8 cm)

Dated lower right: 6/14/81 (JT 1457)

Jack Tworkov in his Provincetown studio, May 8, 1981. © Renate Ponsold

Born 1900, Biala, Poland

Died 1982, Provincetown, MA

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 chair 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 in 1982.

Recently, the artist has been included in such significant exhibitions as Epic Abstraction (2019-2020) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Artistic License (2019) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Pollock e la Scuola di New York (2018) at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome, Italy, and The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, Germany traveling to Munchmuseet, Oslo, Sweden, February 23-May 21, 2023.

Jack Tworkov

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, NC

AD& A Museum at the university of California, Santa Barbara, CA

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA

Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC

The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, MD

Berkeley Art Museum at University of California, Berkeley, CA

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC

Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas, Austin, TX

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME

Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA

Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO

Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA

Denison Museum, Granville, OH

Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA

Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI

Empire State Plaza Art Collection, Albany, NY

Eskenazi Museum of Art, University of Indiana, Bloomington, ID

Exxon Corporation, New York, NY

Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA

Herbert Johnson Museum at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC

Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

The Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Stanford, CA

The Jewish Museum, New York, NY

Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum, Washington, DC

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Lowe Art Museum at University of Miami, Coral Gables FL

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Montana Historical Society (Poindexter Collection), Helena, MT

Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ

Oakland City Museum, Oklahoma City, OK

Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ

Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA

The Rockefeller University, New York, NY

Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI

Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz, NY

San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA

Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

Smart Museum of Art at University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

Snite Museum of Art at University of Norte Dame, Norte Dame, IN

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY

Tate Modern, London, UK

Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ

University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI

Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, FL

The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC

White House Collection, Washington, DC

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Jack Tworkov Drawings 1948-1981

February 16 – March 25, 2023

Design by Nick Naber

Edited by Dorsey Waxter, Nick Naber

Artwork photography by Charles Benton

© 2023 Estate of Jack Tworkov / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Text excerpts taken from an interview with Jack Tworkov which appears in: Jack Tworkov: Works on Paper 1933-1982. New York, NY, Nancy Hoffman Gallery/Mint Museum, p. 9- 13. 1982.

Cover: Detail of Colored Crayon #1, 1976, pg 45 & 46 Page 57: Jack Tworkov in his Provincetown studio, May 8, 1981. © Renate Ponsold

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