Jack Tworkov

Collection highlight: Jack Tworkov at
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“D. A. on P. #4 (Q1-73),” 1974, acrylic on paper, 29 3/4 x 22 3/4 in (75.6 x 57.8 cm) Collection of the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO. Gift of Dr. Harold F. Daum (2011.01.77)
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The work is one of the twelve large works on paper created during the first quarter of 1973 when Tworkov was the Winter Term Artist in Residence at , Hanover, NH. According to research into exhibitions, this work was first exhibited in the solo exhibition of Tworkov’s work at Denver Art Museum in 1974.
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Portrait of Jack Tworkov with “Circle in a Square (Q4-80 #1),” 1980. Photographer unknown.
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Ever dedicated to the gestural mark, but never one to remain totally committed to a pictorial style, in this, one of the artist’s important late series of paintings, he introduced the circle into his otherwise geometrically structured works. “This is really a new desire on my part,” he wrote in his journal dated November 20, 1981, “part of my long-standing wish to get out of the geometric systems into a new subject matter. I feel as if the paintings I’m now working may be the last in that line. Except for the ‘Circle in the Square Theme,’ I may continue with that.” And he did…
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“Circle in a Square I (OC-Q4-80 #1),” 1980, Oil on canvas, 54 x 54 in (137.2 x 137.2 cm) Collection of the Estate of Jack Tworkov
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Now on view in Berlin: “Max Ernst to Dorothea Tanning: Networks of Surrealism Proveannces from the Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection” at
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Though Tworkov abandoned a full-time artistic practice during the war years of 1942-1945, turning his attention to assist in the war effort working as a tool designer employed by the Eastern Engineering Company. By 1944 he resumed independent work, experimenting with the Surrealists’ technique of automatic drawing. Returning to the figure, but in a far looser, more gestural style than his pre-War work.

Tworkov’s life-long admiration for Cézanne’s strong geometric compositional strategies prevented him from abandoning well though-out formal arrangements as in this work collected by Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch.
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Jack Tworkov, Untitled (Abstract Figures), c.1945-1950, watercolor, ink, and pencil on board, 10 1/8 x 13 1/8 in (25.7 x 33.3 cm) Collection
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