It’s Day 71!  Day 2 with the roofers ripping apart the roof above my head.  Been a little hectic, but I’m glad it’s all getting done early as opposed to putting things off until later!  Please join me in celebrating Jack Tworkov today.  It was such a pleasant painting to create and my hubby and I bought some huge canvases today so that I can start creating big pieces to hang in our new house!

He was born in Biała Podlaska, Russian Empire and immigrated to the United

States in 1913 with his mother and younger sister who would later become known as Janice Biala. With the intent to become a writer, Tworkov studied at Columbia University, but after experiencing the paintings by Cézanne and Matisse for the first time in early 1921, he became determined to study art and did so at the National Academy of Design and Art Students League of New York.

During the Depression Era, Tworkov met Willem de Kooning, among others,

and together with a group of abstract expressionists including Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, founded the New York School.

During his lifetime, Tworkov had taught at several institutions, including the American University, Black Mountain College, Queens College, Pratt Institute, University of Minnesota, Columbia University, and Yale University where he was the Chairman of the Art Department from 1963 – 1969.

As Chairman of the Art Department at Yale, Tworkov invited known artists to teach, including Al Held, Knox Martin, George Wardlaw, and Bernard Chaet. Among the students of that era were Chuck Close,Jennifer Bartlett, Richard Serra, Nancy Graves, Rackstraw Downes, and Brice Marden.

Tworkov is regarded as an important and influential artist, along with Mark Rothko,

de Kooning, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock, whose gestural paintings of the early 1950s formed the basis for the abstract expressionist movement in America. Major work from this period is characterized by the use of gestural brush strokes in flame-like color. His work transitioned in during the mid-1960s. Straight lines and geometric patterns characterize his later art work.

What was formerly the UBS Art Gallery in New York exhibited five decades of Tworkov’s work in the 2009 show, Against Extremes, “a tantalizing historical survey” charting everything from his de Kooning roots to his omnipresent “dream of freedom.” 

Tworkov died in 1982 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He was 82.

Biography is from wikipedia.

I really enjoyed painting this painting and I can’t wait to experience how it will feel painting

something like this on a huge canvas.

I hope you enjoy my finished Tworkov tribute as much as I did creating it.  I’ll see you tomorrow on Day 72…I think I want to have some sort of celebration once I hit painting 100!  That’s only about a month away. 🙂  Best, Linda