Auction News: The Tworkov Painting Owned by Sir Elton John!
In situ at Christie’s: Jack Tworkov’s “Crossfield III (W-NY-70 #3) [CR093]” 1970, oil on linen, 80 x 96 in. (203.2 x 243.8 cm)
On February 21, Christie’s will offer a masterwork by Jack Tworkov. Jason Andrew, Director of the Estate of Jack Tworkov lends insight to this remarkable painting. Direct link to auction here.
by Jason Andrew for the Estate of Jack Tworkov
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Auction Alert! The Tworkov owned by Sir Elton John!
“What I wanted,” wrote Tworkov, "was 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.” Perhaps this is what attracted Sir Elton John to purchase this work in December 1991!
In a more disciplined and contemplative move, Jack Tworkov, made geometry play a more active role in his painting. Evolving from the death knell of Abstraction Expressionism, of which he was a First-Generation practitioner, Tworkov began exploring the contrasts between “the measured and the random activity” in his paintings. Numbered systems and mathematic divisions became the framework wherein Tworkov’s gesture would be guided and restrained. “The sense of tension, precipitated by contradiction,” wrote #DouglasCrimp for @artnews in 1971, “is a continuation of the conflict between the spontaneity and restraint which has always been integral to Tworkov’s art.”
The seven paintings that make up the "Crossfield Series" (1968-1970) celebrate Tworkov’s tenuous balance between surface and depth, calligraphy and geometry, sensations of spontaneity and freedom. Each painting in the series is masterfully composed beginning with a horizontal structure and selection of a ground color to determine the overall preferred light value and then the subsequent dense layering of varying hues—light over dark and dark over light creating the illusion of shadow. Paintings in the series vary from monochromes of pink, orange, mauve, and violet.
The title, Crossfield, suggests a current or directional flow, like the patterns of particles drifting or the mass of magnetic conductions. It suggests the movement against or across a prevailing ground.
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Jack Tworkov “Crossfield III (W-NY-70 #3) [CR093]” 1970, oil on linen, 80 x 96 in. (203.2 x 243.8 cm)