Jack Tworkov followed a traditional course of study at the Art Students League in the 1920s and participated in the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project in the late 1930s. A decade later, however, influenced by his friend and neighbor Willem de Kooning, Tworkov embraced Abstract Expressionism. He is considered an important member of that movement, which owed its critical acceptance in large part to ARTnews. This portrait of Tworkov by Rudolph Burckhardt appeared in a feature article published in conjunction with Tworkov's 1964 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, but it is an outtake from the group of photographs Burckhardt made in 1953 to illustrate "Tworkov Paints a Picture," part of a regular ARTnews series on artists at work.

Rudolph Burckhardt (1914–1999)
Gelatin silver print, 1953
Published April 1964
ARTnews Collection, New York City