Twrkv and Jasper Johns
by Jason Andrew
Jack Tworkov and Jasper Johns: a friendship spanning three decades. Left: Jasper Johns, 1959. Photo: Ben Martin/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images. Right: Jack Tworkov in his studio on the Bowery, 1957. Photo: Dennis Wheeler. Courtesy Estate of Jack Tworkov.
On the occasion of Jasper Johns’ 90th birthday, I’ve done a deep dive into the archive to reveal a friendship likely unknown to many. I’ve written on the close relationship between Jack Tworkov and Robert Rauschenberg. But haven’t had the opportunity to discuss Tworkov’s friendship with Jasper Johns.
Calvin Tompkins described Tworkov as one of Rauschenberg’s relatively few admirers among the older generation of Abstract Expressionist painters. It is safe to say that Tworkov was equally supportive of Jasper Johns, particularly early in his career.[1]
We don’t know exactly when Tworkov met Johns. We know that Rauschenberg met Jasper Johns on a winter night in 1954. “Johns was walking home from his job at the Marlboro bookstore two blocks west, where he worked the night shift; Rauschenberg was with Suzi Gablik, who introduced them.”[2] At this point, Johns who was shy and reluctant to seek others out, had recently arrived to New York knowing no other artists. Johns’ friendship with Rauschenberg changed all that and Rauschenberg was quick to introduce Johns to his intimate circle of friends that included Tworkov, composer John Cage, and choreographer Merce Cunningham. It is likely that Tworkov and Johns were introduced as early as 1954.
Holiday postcard from Jasper Johns to Jack Tworkov.
Postmarked December 17, 1957.
Jack Tworkov papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute.
The first mention of Jasper Johns in Tworkov’s published diaries appears on December 17, 1958:
“[…] Went to visit Bob and Jap […] Some of Bob’s drawings for Dante’s Inferno. Jap’s new pictures. One flag on flag on flag.”[3]
Tworkov’s affectionate abbreviation of Jasper as “Jap” is evidence that their friendship was well in place by the time of this journal entry. In fact, the Tworkovs received a greeting card from Johns sending them best wishes for the holiday’s December 1957.[4]
It is important to note that Tworkov, whose support of the younger generation of artists is undisputed, rarely visited the studios of other artists. But, Tworkov was not only drawn to Rauschenberg’s art, but also his personality. Similarly, Tworkov gravitated to Johns and was intrigued by Johns’ sensibility and his new aesthetic. “The work of Bob and Jasper implicitly criticizes the taste of the ordinary,” Tworkov wrote, “They present for consideration as ‘art’ objects that ordinary experience refuses to accept as art.”[5] For Tworkov, Rauschenberg and Johns offered new questions and rigorous engagement. They offered the kind of questioning that defined Tworkov’s own very psychological methods.
Tworkov, Rauschenberg, and Johns were involved with one another, both intellectually and emotionally. As an established older artist, Tworkov was a grounding figure in the evolving lives of Rauschenberg and Johns. All three were represented by Leo Castelli Gallery and exhibited there together regularly during the early 1960s.
Installation View:
Group Show: Lee Bontecou, Jasper Johns, Bernard Langlais, Salvatore Scarpitta, Jack Tworkov
Leo Castelli Gallery,
4 East 77th Street, New York, NY, December 8, 1961 – January 10, 1962
Top: Lee Bontecou and Jasper Johns
Below: Salvatore Scarpitta and Jack Tworkov. Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
Tworkov’s friendship with Johns continued well beyond the end of Johns’ relationship with Rauschenberg. He continued to be a regular dinner guest at Tworkov’s home. One such dinner on February 23, 1962 went recorded by Tworkov:
Jasper, Wally and I alone for dinner made for an unexciting evening. Jasper is less frank with me than he could be about anti-art art. One gets the impression that he is now the most celebrated of an international anti-art set that includes Tinguely, St. Phalle, Bob and others. Yet he is not really anti art either, being at least ninety percent pure painter. As he put it, to be for art or for anti-art is corny.[6]
Tworkov followed Johns’ evolving career. We don’t know exactly what Tworkov wrote to Johns after seeing his drawing show at Leo Castelli in January 1970[7], but we do know that Johns replied, sending Tworkov a postcard, illustrating a painting of bathers by Cezanne (an artist who both held in high repute), writing:
28 Jan ‘70
Dear Jack,
Thank you for your note. It means a great deal to me. Please let me know when I can visit. I look forward to it.
As ever.
Jasper[8]
Tworkov recounted another Johns’ exhibition at Castelli in January 1976:
Went up this morning to see Jasper Johns’ show at Castelli’s uptown […] I liked best two canvases where the strokes (arranged in patterns) are in primary reds, yellow, blues and whites. It reminded me of some early paintings of mine […] in those paintings the strong presence of the color salvaged the paintings.[9]
There has been much discussion as to Tworkov’s influence on a rising generation of artists at the time. As the Chair of the Art Department at Yale (1963-1969), he was a mentor to Jennifer Bartlett, Jonathan Borofsky, Chuck Close, Rackstraw Downes, Nancy Graves, Brice Marden, Richard Serra, and William T. Williams to name a few. Each of these artists at one point or another have commented on Tworkov’s influence on their work.
Postcard from Jasper Johns to Jack Tworkov, January 28, 1970. Jack Tworkov papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute.
Letter from Jasper Johns to Gertude Kasle, April 16, 1969. Jack Tworkov papers. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute.
In April 1969, during the run of Tworkov’s third exhibition at Gertude Kasle Gallery[10] in Detroit, Johns composed this letter prompted by a question posed by Kasle in preparation for the press release regarding Tworkov’s influence on his work:
16 April, 1969
Dear Miss Kasle:
Certainly don’t withdraw that statement. Jack Tworkov is one of the artists I most admire and I should be happy to think that I had been influenced by his work.
Sincerely,
Jasper Johns[11]
Remaining ever engaged with Johns’ work, and holding oscillating options of it, on the occasion of Johns’ retrospective exhibition at the Whitney in 1977[12], Tworkov wrote:
I went in the morning to see Jasper Johns show at the Whitney […] Jasper’s show was interesting. I admired especially all the work on the third floor—the early work, especially the numbers series—more than the flags. Especially admired some of the drawings. Confirmed again my opinion that essentially his paintings not his subjects fascinate me. The 4th floor, the more recent work, lacked for me the reserve and reticence of his earlier work. As if he had gone into competition with Rauschenberg to make compelling images, if not as raunchy as Bob’s. The conscious effort to make a big bang reacts against the paintings. The last phase—work that I saw in his last show at Castelli’s seemed to me uncharacteristically weak. While on the one hand sympathized with his desire to return to straight painting, yet I felt that work was a tremendous comedown from the work of the 50’s.[13]
Jack and Wally Tworkov, New York, 1975.
© Theo Westenberger
This photograph features a figurative painting by Edwin Dickinson and a flag painting by Jasper Johns.
As an ultimate testament to these friendships, there was an active exchange of art work between them. Tworkov owned early works by both Rauschenberg and Johns (an early Johns flag painting hung for many years in the Tworkovs’ home). Likewise, Tworkov’s work remains a part of Johns’ personal collection.