About
To my mind, one does not put oneself in place of the past; one only adds a new link.
—Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly (1928–2011) developed a gestural vocabulary in which each line and color is infused with energy, spirituality, and meaning. Emerging as a prominent figure in the mid-1950s following extensive travels throughout Europe and North Africa, he produced works that are simultaneously personal and mythological, allowing narrative, language, and inner visions to erupt from his intimate, abstract notations.
Twombly was born in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia, and studied art in Boston and New York, then at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the early 1950s. Although he was a contemporary of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, his work soon digressed from the aims of American postwar abstraction. While prevailing tendencies of the period, such as Pop art, sought to abandon historical narratives altogether, Twombly directed his focus toward ancient, classical, and modern poetic traditions. In the late 1950s he moved to Italy, where he produced colorful, diagrammatic works, such as Ode to Psyche (1960), that feature erotic allusions and sly jokes while maintaining an abstract charge. Shortly thereafter the sebaceous, bright colors of these works gave way to the more austere grays and blues of the “blackboard” paintings, in which terse, white scrawls and loops recall the powdery effects of chalk on a blackboard. As Twombly continued to work in various locations over the following decades—including Rome, Lexington, and his final residence, in Gaeta, Italy—places, landscapes, and natural forms came to figure prominently in his drawings, collages, photographs, and watercolors.
For Twombly, the poetic and the rational were not mutually exclusive. Collage, which engaged him briefly in 1959, then began to appear more regularly in 1971, allies Twombly to the Dadaists and their descendants, such as Rauschenberg and Johns. Visual information from everyday life—travel postcards, reproductions of paintings, scientific illustrations, personal drawings, and more—entered his work as a way to explore the potential of both structure and meaning.
From his student days on, Twombly also captured his daily life in photographs. He recorded the verdant landscapes of Virginia and the coasts of Italy; close-up details of ancient buildings and sculptures; studio interiors; and still lifes of objects and flowers. Beginning in the early 1990s, he used specialized copiers to enlarge his Polaroid images on matte paper, resulting in subtle distortions that approximate the timeless qualities of his paintings and sculptures.
In 1995 the Cy Twombly Gallery opened across the street from the Menil Collection in Houston. A collaboration between the Menil, Dia Foundation, and Twombly himself, the gallery serves as a permanent home for a number of important works made between 1953 and 2004. Included is the series of paintings Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair (1985), which features floral forms in deep reds, pinks, and purples, with quotations from Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Giacomo Leopardi. In 2010 Twombly was selected to install a permanent work at the Louvre: a painted ceiling for the Salle des Bronzes. The Ceiling spans 3,750 square feet and pays homage to the greatest Hellenic sculptors, from Phidias to Praxiteles, each of their names inscribed over an immense blue sky populated by floating, cosmic orbs.

Photo: Michael Stravato/The New York Times/Redux
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Website
Exhibitions

Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor
Thierry Greub tracks the literary references in Cy Twombly’s epic painting of 1994.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2021
The Summer 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006) on its cover.

Twombly and the Poets
Anne Boyer, the inaugural winner of the Cy Twombly Award in Poetry, composes a poem in response to Twombly’s Aristaeus Mourning the Loss of His Bees (1973) and introduces a portfolio of the painter’s works accompanied by the poems that inspired them.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2021
The Spring 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on its cover.

Rainer Maria Rilke: Duino Elegies
Bobbie Sheng explores the symbiotic relationship between the poet and visual artists of his time and tracks the enduring influence of his poetry on artists working today.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2020
The Summer 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece 1 (1969) on its cover.

The River Café Cookbook
London’s River Café, a culinary mecca perched on a bend in the River Thames, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2018. To celebrate this milestone and the publication of her cookbook River Café London, cofounder Ruth Rogers sat down with Derek Blasberg to discuss the famed restaurant’s allure.

In Conversation
Sally Mann and Jenny Saville
The two artists discuss being drawn to difficult subjects, the effects of motherhood on their practice, embracing chance, and their shared adoration of Cy Twombly.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2019
The Fall 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Sinking (2019) by Nathaniel Mary Quinn on its cover.

Intimate Grandeur: Glenstone Museum
Paul Goldberger tracks the evolution of Mitchell and Emily Rales’s Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland. Set amid 230 acres of pristine landscape and housing a world-class collection of modern and contemporary art, this graceful complex of pavilions, designed by architects Thomas Phifer and Partners, opened to the public in the fall of 2018.
Cy Twombly: In Beauty it is finished
Mark Francis, director of the exhibition Cy Twombly: In Beauty it is finished, Drawings 1951–2008, describes the impetus for this expansive presentation, the source for its title, and details the stories of some of the works on view.
Cy Twombly: Coronation of Sesostris
Cy Twombly’s Coronation of Sesostris (2000) receives a closer look by Gagosian Director, Mark Francis. In this video, he discusses the history of the work, the myths and poetry embedded within it, and considers its lasting impact.
Fairs, Events & Announcements

Exhibition
Un/veiled
Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations
May 20–June 11, 2022
Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome
fondazionenicoladelroscio.it
Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, in collaboration with Cy Twombly Foundation, is presenting Un/veiled: Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations, a program of concerts, video screenings, piped music, and a series of works by Cy Twombly. The presentation is the result of an extensive three-year survey by Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, at the behest of Nicola Del Roscio, that aims to collect, document, and preserve compositions by musicians from around the world who have been inspired by the work of Twombly or to establish an artistic dialogue with them. To visit the exhibition, e-mail roma@fondazionenicoladelroscio.it. To attend the concerts, access the schedule and bookings links at fondazionenicoladelroscio.it.
Cy Twombly, Roses (Gaeta), 2004 © Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio

Art Fair
Art Basel Miami Beach 2021
December 2–4, 2021, booth D5
Miami Beach Convention Center
artbasel.com
Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in Art Basel Miami Beach 2021 with a presentation of modern and contemporary works. A selection of these works will also appear on gagosian.com and on Art Basel’s Online Viewing Room.
To receive a pdf with detailed information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com. To attend the fair, purchase tickets at artbasel.com.
Gagosian’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2021. Artwork, left to right: © Albert Oehlen; © Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Mary Weatherford. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Art Fair
FIAC 2021
October 21–24, 2021, booth B23
Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris
fiac.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in FIAC 2021 with a presentation of painting, sculpture, and works on paper by gallery artists. The booth will feature works by Georg Baselitz, Edmund de Waal, Helen Frankenthaler, Theaster Gates, Katharina Grosse, Simon Hantaï, Takashi Murakami, Albert Oehlen, Steven Parrino, Auguste Rodin, Sterling Ruby, Setsuko, Jim Shaw, and Cy Twombly, among others. A selection of the works will also appear on gagosian.com and in FIAC’s Online Viewing Room.
To receive a pdf with detailed information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com. To attend the fair, purchase tickets at fiac.com.
Gagosian’s booth at FIAC 2021. Artwork, left to right: © Giuseppe Penone/2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; © Michael Heizer; © Georg Baselitz, 2021; © Pier Paolo Calzolari. Photo: Thomas Lannes
Museum Exhibitions

Closed
Gribouillage/Scarabocchio
Da Leonardo da Vinci a Cy Twombly
March 3–May 22, 2022
Villa Medici–Académie de France à Rome
www.villamedici.it
This exhibition, whose title translates to Scribbling and Doodling: From Leonardo da Vinci to Cy Twombly, includes nearly three hundred original works from the Renaissance to the present day and aims to shed light on these unconventional and often overlooked aspects of the practice of drawing. By exploring scribbling and doodling, from sketches scribbled on the backs of canvases to expansive doodles conceived as artworks in themselves, the exhibition unveils how these experimental, transgressive, regressive, or liberating mark-making gestures, which appear to flout all laws and conventions, have punctuated the history of artistic creation. Work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, and Cy Twombly is included.
Cy Twombly, Untitled (North African Sketchbook), 1953 (page X) © Cy Twombly Foundation

Closed
Hey! Did you know that art does not exist…
July 27, 2021–January 8, 2022
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
www.tamuseum.org.il
This exhibition presents more than one hundred works from Sylvio Perlstein’s intensely personal collection, which traces artists and trends that have defined the avant-garde, complex, and experimental nature of twentieth-century art. Work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Duane Hanson, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Brice Marden, Ed Ruscha, Rudolf Stingel, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol is included.
Rudolf Stingel, Untitled, 2002 © Rudolf Stingel. Photo: Alessandro Zambianchi

Closed
Degree Zero
Drawing at Midcentury
October 31, 2020–June 5, 2021
Museum of Modern Art, New York
www.moma.org
Bringing together approximately eighty works on paper from the museum’s collection, Degree Zero illuminates how artists used drawing to forge a new visual language in the aftermath of World War II. Modest, immediate, and direct, drawing was the ideal medium for this period of renewal. The exhibition looks across movements, geographies, and generations to highlight connections between artists who shared common materials and ideas between 1948 and 1961. Work by Jay DeFeo, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, and Cy Twombly is included.
Jay DeFeo, Untitled (Florence), 1952, Museum of Modern Art, New York © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Closed
How Far Can Creativity Take You
VMFA Fellowship Artists
October 30, 2018–May 16, 2020
VMFA on the Road: An Artmobile for the 21st Century, various locations throughout Virginia
www.vmfa.museum
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’s new state-of-the-art traveling museum and art studio offers an opportunity for residents of the Commonwealth to see and experience works of art from the collection up close. The inaugural exhibition, How Far Can Creativity Take You, celebrates the role this institution has played in the lives of fellowship recipients. Work by Sally Mann and Cy Twombly is included.
Cy Twombly, The Song of the Border Guard, 1952 © Cy Twombly Foundation