Twrkv featured with Eduardo Secci at Art Brussels
Jack Tworkov (1900-1982) Partitions (Q3-71 #2), 1971, oil on canvas, 72 x 90 in (182.9 x 228.6 cm) [CR 110]
Art Brussels
Apr 28-May 1
Eduardo Secci, Booth C83
Eduardo Secci’s booth features modern and contemporary artists in dialogue with each other. On the one hand we will be featuring a plethora of modern artists as Giò Pomodoro, Joan Witek, Jack Tworkov, and Enrico Castellani, while on the other hand we will display works by Radu Oreian, Joshua Hagler, and Mateusz Chorobski.
About Tworkov's Partitions:
Jack Tworkov was capable of lavish painterly effects like those in the exceptional painting Partitions (Q3-71 #2), 1971. Despite the artist’s shift toward and affinity for geometry, the paintings the artist completed during the final decades of this life range in moods and sensations.
Painted during the third quarter of 1971, Partitions is one of the first to embrace Tworkov’s new found “subject matter”:
The subject matter of my recent painting is the contrast between the measured and the random activity, both subject more or less to the choice of sensibly. The measured activity refers to the measuring of the rectangle on which I am to paint. The measuring points to simple proportional relationships in the rectangle. But given a certain number of located points a variety of patterns and images become possible according to the manner in which they are related by lines […] the brushing represents a purely random activity while the drawing based on measure can be repeated exactly—the painting is unique in the sense it can never be repeated exactly—although the procedure can be approximately similar each time I paint. –Jack Tworkov, “The Subject Matter of My Recent Paintings,” Provincetown, January 23, 1970
Though published thirty-seven years ago in the April issue of Arts Magazine, this assessment by the critic Kenneth Baker seems ever so relevant today:
“This is an excellent moment to study Tworkov's work, a moment when there seems to be a decided shortage of credible abstract painting. People who look hard at his late paintings will have to wonder how many of today's prodigies of expressionism are really expressing only the desire to flee from the problems Tworkov was trying to face squarely in every picture. Though their manifest visual content is refined, even severe at times, Tworkov's paintings lodge a powerful protest against the historical circumstances that have put art and humanity itself on the defensive. The maturity of Tworkov's art shows in his refusal to pretend that he can determine the relations of painting to the larger realms of historical reality. Those relations have to be discovered, and no pretense to being a painter of the Zeitgeist is going to accomplish that discovery. It comes only by way of sustaining painting as a form of almost votive practice that dissolves ego and ambition rather than fueling them. In the way that it is out of step with art fashion, Tworkov's late painting could hardly be more timely.”
Q4-CH #1-71, 1971, Charcoal on paper, 19 3/4 x 25 1/2 in (50.2 x 64.8 cm) [CR 860]
Study for “Partitions,” c. 1971, colored pencil on paper, 19 1/2 x 25 3/8 in (49.5 x 64.5 cm) [CR 1006]
Partitions has been featuring in the following exhibitions:
Provincetown Art Association, Provincetown, Mass., 1971 Invitational Exhibition, August 15–September 6, 1971.
Gertude Kasle Gallery, Detroit, Jack Tworkov: Recent Paintings, November 6–December 1, 1971.
French & Company, New York, Jack Tworkov, April 15–May 11, 1972.
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., American Painting: 18th, 19th, 20th Centuries, July 27–September 3, 1972.
Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., Jack Tworkov: Winter Term Artist-in-Residence, February 9–March 4, 1973.
Jack Glenn Gallery, Corona Del Mar, Calif., Tworkov, April 28–May 31, 1973.
New Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Jack Tworkov: Paintings and Drawings: 1968-1975, November 11–December 6, 1975. Exhibition traveled to: Sullivan Gallery, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, January 6–February 7, 1976; Kilcawley Center Art Gallery, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio, February 11–March 9, 1976; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, March 15–April 29, 1976.
Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, Jack Tworkov: Paintings and Works on Paper from the 1970's, March 23–April 24, 1985.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Jack Tworkov: A Retrospective, Paintings 1928–1982, January 30–April 5, 1987.
UBS Art Gallery, New York, Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes-Five Decades of Painting, August 13–October 27, 2009.
Exhibition announcement: Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, Jack Tworkov: Paintings and Works on Paper from the 1970's, March 23–April 24, 1985.