| THE EXTREME OF THE MIDDLE:
Writings of Jack Tworkov
Edited by Mira Schor
Jack
Tworkov (1900--1982) was a significant figure of the Abstract
Expressionist period. A noted painter, he was instrumental in defining
the ideals of the New York School, along with Willem de Kooning,
Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, and Franz Kline, among others. This book,
the first collection of Tworkov’s writings, sheds new light on the
lives and studio practices of Tworkov and his colleagues as well as on
Tworkov’s artistic theories and values.
These enlightening and
intimate writings—personal journals and letters, teaching notebooks,
correspondence with other artists, previously unpublished essays, and
published articles—are introduced and annotated by Mira Schor, who
provides an informed account of an important artist and thinker. The
book is enriched by photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn,
Arnold Newman, and Robert Rauschenberg; family photographs with Hans
Hofmann, John Cage, Kline, and others; and reproductions of some of
Tworkov’s finest work.
Mira Schor is a painter and author who also teaches at Parsons The New School for Design.
464 pp. 46 b/w + 15 color illus. 6 x 9
paper 978-0-300-14102-3
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The first comprehensive publication of the writings of Jack Tworkov,
a significant painter, teacher,
and author of the Abstract Expressionist Period.
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"In the course of his long life as a painter, Jack Tworkov
became an important figure in the maturation of abstract art in America."
-Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Foundation and Museum
"Jack Tworkov was a free thinker in an ideological time.
This collection is an indispensable addition to the story of American Art."
-Mark Stevens, co author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography
de Kooning: An American Master
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book reviews:
| Barry Schwabsky, The Nation
"Tworkov, one of the original Abstract Expressionists whose mark on the
history of painting is inexpugnable, accomplished a great deal in a
long and rich life, not only as an artist but as a teacher and a
mensch. And his writings are a considerable contribution to the art
history of his time. Their subject is not so much aesthetics or form as
the ethics of art." READ MORE...
James Panero, The New Criterion“This 480-page volume brings together Tworkov's artist statements, published reviews, and correspondence, but most notably it unearths extensive selections from Tworkov's diaries. In their philosophical and artistic introspection, these rigorous notations may just be the New York School's answer to the journals of Delacroix." READ MORE...NEWSgrist
"The Extreme of the Middle is a moving portrayal in [Tworkov's] own words of personal and artistic life of an original and deeply serious painter...it offers fascinating and beautifully written new perspective on post war American art..." READ MORE...
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| Jack Tworkov, c.1951 PHOTO: Walter Auerbach |
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| January 21, 1947
Style is the effect of pressure. A body of water is still or turbulent according to the bed, the course—obstacles present or absent, environment such as open or sheltered shores, etc. In the artist the origin of pressure is in his total life—heredity, experience and will (he has to will to be an artist)—but the direction flows according to the freedom he allows his creative impulse.
Where a style develops that is not the effect of organic pressure, it is merely like an artificial pool with no capacity for self-renewal and development—the work is manufactured. When a work has style in the sense described it is admissible as a work of art—it finds its place according to the kind and extent of the pressure that was behind its creation.
A man could walk away from his “pressures”--he could gamble, whore, drink, make money, turn to crime, waste himself in laziness, go insane, or commit suicide. He chooses instead to become an artist..
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| Jack Tworkov, c.1953 PHOTO: Rudy Burckhardt |
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| January 9, 1954
When
the artist paints he must be in front of his picture not in front of
the mirror. All the horrors in this world come from those who want to
stamp their image on the world even if they crush your skull in the
process.
February 12, 1954
I
am against those who would legislate for art. I am against all
no-dictums. I am against limiting the room for turning. I am against
final positions—at least until my own final position which I hope comes
not before the last breath. I would hate to live with my final position
for ten years—ten years in prison. Or three. Or two. Mondrian is more
interesting in all the stages of his approaching than in his final
stage. His final state is beautiful, but boring. If you are an artist
what is the difference between a final style and manufacturing? I’m not
interested in making it better. I’m interested in development, not in
variations. I move from picture to picture, not from set to set. I
don’t paint a show.
February 2, 1959
In
such paintings as Water Game, Pink Mississippi, Cradle, Transverse and
others the mood is anything but lyrical if I take lyrical to mean
singing, subjective, moody. The central image of these paintings [is]
an action brought near by a telescope but out of earshot, silent and
meaningless. In a thicket the actors might be lovers, or a murderer and
his victim—the anxiety is that of silence of an action without sound,
without meaning. When the spectator identifies himself as one of the
actors he wakes up screaming and nothing is there.... There are two
ways of dealing with silence. One way is not strike the keys at all (if
you take the piano as an example). The other is to strike the keys then
stop the vibration of the wires one by one. In my painting silence is
imposed on action. I make the process visible. As I paint the picture I
paint it out. The analogy is again to motion arrested by motion.
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| Jack Tworkov, 1981 PHOTO: Renate Ponsold |
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| Private Criticism: Notes on Ad Reinhardt
You
cannot say that an art movement is insignificant, but that one artist
is great and vice-versa. If Reinhardt’s criticism is really true then
the whole period isn’t worth two cents and this includes Reinhardt. I
resent the creation of an art monopoly in our time. I don’t argue with
critics who want to do this, but should artists participate. This is
one of the most perplexing things to me. I don’t like rigidity of ideas
in art. This I think bothers me most about Reinhardt. Bill once said
that you don’t have to strive for rigidity; it overtakes you like rigor
mortis.
Thursday, August 7, 1975
[
. . . ] I’ll be celebrating my seventy-fifth birthday next week. I feel
neither depressed nor elated. I’m in good health and I’ve worked this
summer as hard or harder than any summer I can remember. Last Sunday I
went to Wellfleet Gallery to an opening and ran into Serge Chermayeff
who shook my shoulder and cried “You look the same as ever damn you!
Why don’t you grow older? What’s your secret?” I said, “I just took a
nap.” “With me”, he said, “it’s gin. Gin keeps me going.” I didn’t say,
“You look it.”
Without
speaking to any one about it, I do, inwardly, dwell on my age a lot.
And I must sometime set my musings down with as little censorship as
possible.
April 22, 1980
[...]
Looking beyond the present to man’s whole history, of wars,
persecutions, exploitations, violence and oppressions, a feeling of
despair overtakes me. Perhaps the creation of man was a mistake. I have
often dreamt that I would rather be a creeping, crawling creature than
man—to go back to the very beginning, to start again, to give evolution
a second chance. Only in the studio I wake from this despair, only in
the studio does my life take form. This is what I mean when I say “art
saves my life.
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