Repetition and Simplicity : The friendship of Jack Tworkov and I. M. Pei

 By Jason Andrew

[Published on the occasion of forthcoming sale of the Collection of Eileen and I. M. Pei offered by Christie’s New York. Tworkov’s major work titled Note (1968), will be offered on November 14 in this sale.]

Jack Tworkov and the architect I. M. Pei were celebrated for their bold yet pragmatic approaches to their respective fields. Their friendship, which spanned decades, was one based on mutual respect and admiration.

It is not known how they first met, however the friendship between Tworkov and Pei likely solidified when Tworkov took the helm as the Chair of the Art Department of the Yale School of Art and Architecture in July 1963 (a post held until 1969). Nearly twenty years Pei’s elder, Tworkov was known for his appreciation (or rather opinions) of painting, dance, theater, and architecture. He had philosophical debates with himself (as recorded in his journals) as well as with others regarding Van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph, and Frank Lloyd Wright. One such debate he had with the critic Harold Rosenberg as he recorded in his journal in February 1960:

Architecture has such terrific standing in art history that we refuse to see that what we call modern architecture today is just high-blown, high styled commercial art. When modern architecture is at its most serious, it is technological and sociological with emphasis on the logical, and quite as divorced from the concerns of art […]

Pei at this point was relatively unknown and but by the end of 1964, he would win over Jacqueline Kennedy and become the architect of the Kennedy Library, his first major independent monumental project.

Frequent participants in the cultural life of New York and beyond, Pei and his wife Eileen, who had a keen trained eye, made routine visits to Tworkov’s studio. The families were known to be welcome guests at each others’ dinner parties. In 1965, the Pei’s purchased their first major painting by Tworkov called Night Web (1964) from the legendary dealer Leo Castelli. This painting hung in the living room of the Pei residence sharing a wall with works by Willem de Kooning and Morris Louis.

In the fall of 1966, Tworkov and Pei were to participate in a panel discussion on Environmental Art at Manhattanville College. Pei regrettably had to decline as he had “tentatively committed to go to the Far East under the auspices of Yale-in-China.” Sending his regrets Pei wrote in a letter to Russell C. Cecil, Chairman of the Rye Art Center, “Much as I enjoy doing these things, I regret I shall not be able to participate in your program. I am particularly sorry in this case since my good friend, Jack Tworkov, is involved.”[1]

Their friendship would continue to evolve over many years. “I was privileged to have observed this special relationship,” wrote Sandi Pei recently in an email, “while I was living in Rome after college and during Jack’s tenure at the American Academy [Summer 1972], to enjoy several lovely dinners held in their grand house in the Gianicolo.” Theirs was a “warm and deep friendship.”

Following a visit by I. M. to Tworkov’s studio in January 1980, Tworkov wrote this letter to Eileen dated January 25, 1980:

Dear Eileen,
When I.M. came to my studio looking for a drawing for you, he inquired about a drawing he said you saw in my studio some years ago. Somehow or other I guessed he meant a drawing which I subsequently had sold. But I had another version of it, not as good, I am afraid, as the one you saw. Anyway, I had the gallery frame it, and I told I.M. if it looked alright [sic] framed, I’ll make it my gift to you. So here it is and I hope it looks well to you too, and my belated and warmest wishes for 1980 goes with it.
Love,
Jack

Hence Tworkov’s work on paper Untitled (OP), (1954) entered the Pei’s collection.

A week later, on February 3, 1980, Tworkov received a phone call from his dealer, Nancy Hoffman, that I. M. Pei had visited the gallery and “looked at the earlier paintings and wants to buy one or two,” as Tworkov recorded in his journal. Tworkov went on to confide that he had “been holding back these paintings” and felt “some regret about the ones already sold.” But, as Tworkov continued in his journal, “I’d rather sell to Pei than anybody I know […] it’s going to be hard for me to say no to him.”[2]

On Sunday, February 24, 1980, Tworkov recorded in his journal:

The Pei’s bought Note. Eileen called a day or two after to express her great pleasure with the painting. As soon as the painting is on their wall—we are to have dinner with them.[3]

When Tworkov’s sister, the painter Janice Biala opened a show of new paintings at the Gruenbaum Gallery in early March 1980, Tworkov gave a party and “among the guests were I.M., Eileen, and Sandi Pei, Myron Stout, the Helds [Al and Sylvia], the Kramers, Nancy and Michael [Hoffman], Hermine [Ford], Bob [Moskowitz] and Erik [Moskowitz], the Pragers [David and Annabelle], Elise Asher, Betty Klavun, the Petersons [Vita and Gustav], and Takako Yamaguchi.”[4]

Days later, Tworkov and his wife Wally were invited to the Pei’s for drinks:

On the 15th of March we went for drinks at the Pei’s—they had framed and hung the painting Note and wanted us to see it. It looked well there—in their dining room—in fact it looked better than I had thought—it’s amazing what sometimes a new environment does for a painting—I saw it new. The Pei’s have been so generous in their expression of how happy they are with the painting […] the Pei’s took us to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown for dinner. The place was full—Pei acquaintances and artists among them Noguchi again—there was a lot of greeting and handshaking.[5]

Note was the first painting in a group of two paintings known as the Winter Series, or WS, which Tworkov completed in Winter 1968. Note is a bridge to the gestural stroke of Tworkov’s Abstract Expressionist period crossing into what would come next—a measure and repetition mark. “I went from a large long brushstroke to a small brushstroke extending the time it take to traverse the surface though not necessarily the time it takes to make the picture,” Tworkov wrote in January 1970.[6] This painting begins the journey toward the implementation of a repetitious mark over a measured structure.

Tworkov craved “a simple structure dependent on drawing as a base on which the brushing, spontaneous and pulsating, gave a beat to the painting somewhat analogous to the beat in music.”[7] He soon arrived at an elementary system of measurement implicit in the geometry of the rectangle that became the basis for composing his paintings. These measured fields offered a guide for Tworkov’s gestural spontaneous mark.

Pei also craved a balance of repetition and simplicity in his work. In a 1987 interview for 60 minutes, Pei offered an anecdote about architecture—a harmony of structure and spirit like music:

If we can approach the music of Bach, as an example—extremely simple, there is always a theme. And there is a certain repetition with it not seeming like repetition. And the endless variety of simple theme. And that is the challenge. Same with music. Same with architecture.[8]

Tworkov carried similar interest writing in 1965, “What makes me persist is I believe abstract painting has possibilities of grandeur like music, like Bach.” The relationship between music and painting returns in one of Tworkov’s final journal entries, “Painting is best perceived as music, silent music if you wish […]”[9]

There is a meditative rhythm in Tworkov’s Note—a quietude and monumentality that undoubtedly appealed to I. M. Pei.

1. Pei, I. M. Letter to Mr. Russell C. Cecil, Chairman, Rye Art Center, October 4, 1966. Jack Tworkov papers, circa 1926-1993. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute.

2. Tworkov, Jack. Journal Entry, Sunday, February 3, 1980. Published in Mria Schor, ed. “Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov.” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 402.

3. Journal Entry, Sunday, February 24, 1980 (unpublished: Diary September 1979-August 1980).

4. Journal Entry, Sunday, March 2, 1980 (unpublished: Diary September 1979-August 1980).

5. Journal Entry, Sunday, March 2, 1980 (unpublished: Diary September 1979-August 1980).

6. Journal Entry, Provincetown, January 23, 1970. Published in Mria Schor, ed. “Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov.” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 255.

7. Tworkov, Jack. "On My Outlook as a Painter: A Memoir." Leonardo, International Journal of the Contemporary Artist Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1974), 116.

8. Letter to Janice and Alain. September 17, 1964. Published in Mria Schor, ed. “Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov.” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 311.

9. Journal Entry, Sunday, May 3, 1981. Published in Mria Schor, ed. “Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov.” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 417.