Michael Tyzack BRITISH, 1933-2007

Michael Tyzack, who had been taught at the Slade in London by William Coldstream, Lucian Freud and William Townsend, was awarded the First Prize at the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition in 1965, when the American art critic Clement Greenberg was the jury chairman.  During the Sixties and Seventies he exhibited at dozens of galleries, including Axiom, Demarco and Mappin; at this time he was also a professional jazz trumpeter. Tyzack 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. Although his emigration to the United States drew Michael Tyzack away from England at a key point in his artistic career, his role as a leading figure in the development of British Abstraction during the ‘ 60s and ‘ 70s is evident from his exhibition record. His work is represented in a large number of public collections worldwide as a result.