Jack Tworkov
Jack Tworkov 1900-1982: Pioneer of Abstract Expressionism – A Survey
Mar 21 – May 9, 2026
Opening: Tuesday, Mar 24, 8pm – 10pm
The gallery is pleased to announce Jack Tworkov 1900-1982: Pioneer of Abstract Expressionism – A Survey, an exhibition of key works by the influential American painter from 1951 to 1982, organized with the support of the Estate of Jack Tworkov, Van Doren Waxter, and major US and Asian collectors. Marking this historically significant artist’s first major retrospective in Asia, the exhibition follows the evolution of his practice, characterized by the artist’s disposition toward creative fluidity and shifting identities, with a focus on the years in which he played a pioneering role in the Abstract Expressionist movement alongside peers including Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. On view from March 21st to May 9th, the exhibition offers a journey through history made via the eyes and hands of its maker.
Born in 1900 in Biała Podlaska, Russia (now Poland), Tworkov immigrated with his family to the United States in 1913. Tworkov’s oeuvre saw various transitions under the artist’s steady resolute and unique sensibility. Rooted in his diasporic upbringing, his every evolving work spanned five-decades from the early 1920s to the early 1980s and was positioned at the forefront of historic movements in American art, notably Abstract Expressionism. The late 1940s marked an important turning point in the artist’s career, as he returned to the studio after supporting the US war effort in World War II as a tool designer. The art scene in New York to which he returned had been renewed after the disruption of war. American artists broke from European influences establishing a complete creative independence emphasizing spontaneity, emotion, and universal themes. Tworkov was a leading member of this group, which has been known as the New York School of Abstract Expressionism.
Tworkov was receptive to a wide range of influences from the works of French Impressionist Paul Cézanne to the Fauves, to Homer’s Odyssey (800 B.C.E.), and much later, his own mathematical interests, Tworkov’s liberal and inquisitive visual language enriched his gestural approach to painting which would define the Abstract Expressionist movement in America.
Tworkov has an established presence in museums worldwide, including in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (IL), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), The Museum of Modern Art (NY), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NY), Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), Tate Modern (London), and Whitney Museum of American Art (NY) among many more. Jack Tworkov’s early gallery affiliations trace the rise of post-war American art. He first exhibited at New York’s Charles Egan Gallery in 1947 and again in 1954—a space known for championing pioneers like de Kooning, Rothko, Noguchi, Bourgeois, and Rauschenberg. In the late 1950s, he showed with the influential Stable Gallery, which helped define the Abstract Expressionist movement. Beginning in 1961, Tworkov’s work was represented by the legendary Leo Castelli Gallery, cementing his place within the canon of 20th-century art. He has also been included in other major exhibitions of abstract expressionists, most notably Founders and Heirs of the New York School , a travelling exhibition that showed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai; and Museum of Art, Ibaraki in Japan (1997); American Vanguard for Paris, organized by the Sidney Janis for Galerie de France exhibition with artists including de Kooning, Gorky, and Pollock (1962); The Osaka Festival: International Art of a New Era: U.S.A., Japan, Europe, Osaka, Japan (1958) and New American Painting, organized by Dorothy Miller for the International Program of the Museum of Modern Art (1958) which toured to eight European venues including Kunsthalle, Basel, Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Musee National d’Art Moderne, Paris, and Tate Gallery, London.
Articles
Liao Jiaming 廖家明 / Review / September 26, 2024
Mark Chung / Feature / Dec 22, 2023
Andrew Luk & Samuel Swope / Feature / April 15, 2021
Wing Po So / Review / November 18, 2019
Mak Ying Tung 2 / Review / September 3, 2018
Liang Ban / Review / April 16, 2018
Andrew Luk / Review / October 28, 2017
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DE SARTHE is a pioneering platform for boundary-pushing contemporary art from Asia. Founded in 1977, the gallery has also had an influential international presence in Modern and Post-war art since its establishment. In 2017, on its 40th anniversary, DE SARTHE moved into the heart of Hong Kong’s thriving southside art district.
Artists
Carson Wang, Double Fly Art Center, Mark Chung, Liang Ban, Lin Jingjing, Lu Xinjian, Eugene Lun, Mak2, Ma Sibo, Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Wang Guofeng, Wang Jiajia, Wang Xin, Xin Yunpeng, Xinyan Zhang, Zhong Wei, Zhou Wendou