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JACK TWORKOV Rime

JACK TWORKOV
Rime
1966
Oil on canvas
95 by 53 in. 241.3 by 134.6 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Nightfall

JACK TWORKOV
Nightfall
1961
Oil on canvas
62 by 76 in. 157.5 by 193 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Variables II

JACK TWORKOV
Variables II
1964-65
Oil on canvas
60 by 80 in. 152.4 by 203.2 cm.

JACK TWORKOV P73 #4

JACK TWORKOV
P73 #4
1973
Oil on canvas
96 by 68 in. 243.8 by 172.7 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Bend

JACK TWORKOV
Bend
1969
Oil on canvas
50 by 62 in. 127 by 157.5 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Trace

JACK TWORKOV
Trace
1966
Oil on canvas
50 by 69 in. 127 by 175.2 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Idling II (WNY - 70 #1)

JACK TWORKOV
Idling II (WNY - 70 #1)
1970
Oil on canvas
80 by 70 in. 203.2 by 177.9 cm.

JACK TWORKOV P73 #7

JACK TWORKOV
P73 #7
1973
Oil on canvas
90 by 127 in. 228.6 by 322.6 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Barrier Series #5

JACK TWORKOV
Barrier Series #5
1963
Oil on canvas
64 1/2 by 80 in. 163.8 by 203.2 cm.

JACK TWORKOV Variables Section (I)

JACK TWORKOV
Variables Section (I)
1963
Oil on canvas
53 1/2 by 23 in. 135.9 by 58.4 cm.

JACK TWORKOV True and False

JACK TWORKOV
True and False
Installation view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY, 2010

JACK TWORKOV True and False

JACK TWORKOV
True and False
Installation view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY, 2010

JACK TWORKOV True and False

JACK TWORKOV
True and False
Installation view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY, 2010

JACK TWORKOV True and False

JACK TWORKOV
True and False
Installation view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY, 2010

Press Release

Mitchell-Innes & Nash will present an exhibition of paintings by New York school artist Jack Tworkov in their Chelsea gallery from January 15 – February 20, 2010. This will be the gallery's fourth exhibition of Tworkov's work, and the first in the Chelsea space. It includes 10 paintings dating from 1960 to 1975.

Jack Tworkov was among the central figures of New York's Abstract Expressionist school. Throughout his more than five-decade career, he created paintings and drawings distinguished by their intensity of gesture and intellectual rigor. In the period covered by the exhibition (1960-1975), Tworkov began to move away from his interest in the purely gestural composition and toward a more analytic and geometrically based form of painting. During this time (1963-1969) Tworkov was also Chairman of the Art Department at Yale University. His students included Chuck Close, Jennifer Bartlett and Michael Craig-Martin among others.

The exhibition includes examples from several bodies of work, including the "Variables" series, developed in the early 1960s. The canvases from this series are divided into six sections, each of which are handled as individual compositions. Jack Tworkov (1900-1982) was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States when he was 13. He studied English at Columbia University, and art at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. He taught at several institutions, including Yale University where he served as chairman of the Art Department from 1963 to 1969.

His work is in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Gallery in Washington, DC; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Museum of Modern Art, New York among many others. Tworkov's collected writings were published this summer by Yale University Press in "The Extreme of the Middle," edited by Mira Schor. A retrospective exhibition at the UBS Gallery, New York, "Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes," was on view in Fall 2009. The title of the Mitchell-Innes & Nash exhibition is taken from a 1968 Tworkov quote: "True and False. Blind man's bluff, hands outstretched in the darkness feeling, wondering what is true and what is false, because our life depends on knowing the difference."