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