Jack Tworkov: An Interview

Jack Tworkov (1900-1982) was an important member of the first generation of Abstract Expressionist painters and was, for a number of years, head of the Yale University art program. During the Depression, Tworkov worked for the WPA Federal Art Project, and became friends with artists such as Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Mark Rothko; their work was the foundation of the New York School of painting.  Late in his career, his work became more geometric, as the mark and gesture was increasingly determined by isometric grid structures. This tape was shot a year before Tworkov’s death in 1982.

“I came to the conclusion that the subconscious was banal. I began looking for some kind of form for constants that you could hold on to,” Tworkov says in this interview with Kate Horsfield. “Given a grid, the possibility of forms becomes infinite. What you choose is still spontaneous.”

A historical interview originally recorded in 1981 and re-edited in 2003 with support from the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund.