Michael Tyzack

Michael Tyzack ( born August 3, 1933, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, † 11 February, 2007 John Iceland, South Carolina, United States) was a British painter and printmaker. He is considered an important representative of contemporary abstract painting. He was also known as a jazz trumpeter.

Life and work

Michael Tyzack studied from 1952 to 1956 at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Among his most important teachers were William Townsend, Victor Pasmore, Lucian Freud and Sir William Coldstream. Among his fellow students included, among others, Patrick Heron and William Scott.

In 1956 he received a scholarship for a stay in Paris. After his return in 1957 he was active in addition to his painting as a jazz musician.

His work is characterized by its color joyful Geometric abstraction. In 1968, he was with six geometric- abstract images of the participants documenta 4 in Kassel.

Since 1955 his work has been exhibited in over 50 group exhibitions in the UK and in France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Italy, Brazil, Australia and Canada. Michael Tyzack was a teacher in the UK and North America and was a professor at the college in Charleston from 1976 to 2007.

Literature and sources

• Exhibition catalog for Documenta IV: IV documentation. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: ( painting and sculpture ); Volume 2: (graphics / objects ); Kassel 1968
• Kimpel, Harald / stem, Karin: documenta IV International Exhibition 1968 - A photographic reconstruction ( Series of the documenta - Archives); Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-524-9