Collections Winter 2013 Volume 94 | Page 14

GROWING THE COLLECTION Two Tyzack Works Recently Acquired Michael Tyzack, British, 1933-2007, Onyx, 1994, seriagraph, AP 53”x 39.” Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin Gimarc in 2012. The Museum has received two large and striking works on paper by noted artist Michael Tyzack (British, 1933-2007). They were generously donated by Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin M. Gimarc, longtime supporters of the arts in Columbia and past recipients of the Museum’s Craft Leadership Award. The two serigraphs (a type of silkscreen), Onyx and Opal, are excellent additions to our modern and contemporary collection. Michael Tyzack was born in Sheffield and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1956, he won a French Government Scholarship that allowed him to travel to Paris, where his work began to show a tendency towards abstraction and the influence of Cézanne. Michael Tyzack, British, 1933-2007, Opal, 1994, seriagraph, AP 53&q”x 39.” Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin Gimarc in 2012. A talented musician, Tyzack returned to England in 1957 to pursue a career as a Jazz trumpeter, while continuing to paint in his spare time. In 1965, Tyzack won first prize in the prestigious John Moores’ Liverpool Exhibition and continued to exhibit at prominent galleries and museums in England and America during the 1960s and 1970s. He moved to Iowa to fill a teaching post in 1971, originally planning to stay only one year. However, he and his family decided to remain in America after he was offered the post of Professor of Fine Arts at the College of Charleston, where he lived until his death in 2007. Michael Tyzack’s presence in South Carolina created a direct link between our state and the most current innovations in international abstraction. His work shows the influence of earlier abstract artists such as Josef Albers and Piet Mondrian, but is also inflected by Op Art—a dynamic art movement that explored the fundamentals of how vision functio ns. Often in Op Art, there is a strong contrast between shapes and their backgrounds, creating compelling visual tensions. Like most successful artists, Tyzack copied no one. Instead, he synthesized the influences that he encountered. The resulting abstractions are distinctly individual and at the same time speak to the broad traditions that precede them. Both of these exciting works will be on view within the coming year. n