Mark and Dot: Twrkv and Yayoi Kusama
L to R: Yayoi Kusama with one of her Infinity Net paintings in New York, c.1961. Image courtesy: Ota Fine Arts © 2023 YAYOI KUSAMA. Used by permission; Jack Tworkov in his Provincetown studio, 1960. © 2023 Arnold Newman / Getting Images.
In a new article published this month in Athenaeum Review, Tworkov scholar Jason Andrew in collaboration with Kusama scholar Midori Yamamura, presents a study and analysis of the journals, letters, and lives of Jack Tworkov and Yayoi Kusama. Though available to the public through the Tworkov Papers at the Archives of American Art, the letters from Kusama to Tworkov remain completely unknown. This article links these seemingly disparate artists.
Between 1962-1967, Jack Tworkov (1900-1982) and Yayoi Kusama (b.1929) met several times in New York and Provincetown, forging a significant if unexpected friendship between two artists from very different backgrounds. While the established narratives of their careers may make a connection surprising, letters, calendar diaries, and journal entries reveal that their friendship was meaningful and fruitful on both sides.
This research highlights an intimate correspondence while situating the friendship within the context of each artist’s career. Further, this article offers an introduction to the working styles of Tworkov and Kusama, which intersect in both their practices and philosophies. Kusama sought out Tworkov as an established artist and respected thinker, while Tworkov was drawn to Kusama for her energetic and fully embraced freedom.
Although their careers took vastly different paths, the philosophical and gestural strategies for their art ran in parallel, as did their questioning of prevailing aesthetic orthodoxies of the day: Tworkov had the mark and Kusama had the dot.
L to R: Yayoi Kusama in her New York studio, c.1961. Image courtesy: Ota Fine Arts © 2023 YAYOI KUSAMA. Used by permission; Jack Tworkov in his New York studio with the painting “Daybreak,” c.1953. Photo: © 2023 Estate of Jack Tworkov / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.