GALLERIES
NUANCED CANVASES:
The Late Paintings of Jack Tworkov
ACME FINE ART, 38 Newbury St.
through May 3
By Cate McQuaid, Globe Correspondent
April 30, 2008
Jack Tworkov, an early member of the New York School in the 1940s
and '50s, may be best known for his aggressive Abstract Expressionist
paintings, but the canvases he made late in life, in the 1960s and
'70s, introduce the keen refinement of geometry without losing the
power of the brush stroke.
A show of his late work at ACME Fine Art is accompanied by a tiny
exhibit that includes a couple of earlier Tworkovs, such as "Figure CD"
(1960), a garish orange woman slashed onto a blue ground with bold
strokes. In a magazine interview, the artist later called that style of
painting "nihilistic."
In the later paintings, the brushwork became more nuanced; great
swaths of textured color hung on crisp frameworks of intersecting
lines. The straight lines suggest looking through a fractured prism,
but with Tworkov's delicate strokes, it's as if he has wrapped the
hard-edged prism in translucent velvet.
"Indian Red Series #1" sports glinting, silver-gray lines, filled in
with red, brown, gray, and blue, each dusted with another tone. The
layering of colors imbues the painting with breath. It's geometric but
organic and unpredictable. Tworkov handled his material masterfully.
Pulling in from the broad strokes of Abstract Expressionism, he
liberated something quieter and more intriguing.
|
 |
| "Figure CD," (1960) by Jack Tworkov |
|
|
