Cy Twombly

In the 1950s, when Twombly was a young artist, Abstract Expressionism radically disrupted the conventions of easel painting. Although he was a contemporary of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, his work eventually departed from the aims of American postwar abstraction. While prevailing movements of the period, such as Pop art and Minimalism, sought to abandon historical narratives altogether, Twombly, who began to spend time in Europe during this period, directed his focus to classical, modern, and ancient poetic traditions.

One of the earliest works included in the exhibition is from a 1951 sketchbook. Several drawings feature cascades of pencil markings, subtle gradations, erasures, and other evidence of Twombly’s intense contact with the paper. In the late 1950s Twombly moved to Italy, and Volume 2, which documents this period, includes colorful, diagrammatic works such as Ode to Psyche (1960), featuring erotic allusions and jokes while maintaining an abstract charge. Through the 1960s, sensuousness and color pervade the drawings, which eventually evolve into more austere gray and blue “blackboard” works.

Works from later volumes present changing preoccupations in Twombly’s practice and thinking, as he plunged further into poetic and mythic sources. As he continued to work in various locations—including his hometown of Lexington, Virginia, and his final residence in Gaeta, Italy—places, landscapes, and natural forms came to figure prominently in drawings, collages, and watercolor series.

Volume 8 presents the final, valedictory phase of Twombly’s works on paper. Many of these, which remained in his studio after his death, will be shown for the first time. With sebaceous materials such as oil stick and wax crayon, the late works reveal, in their lyricism and sensuousness, what Twombly described as his “irresponsibility to gravity.” The work that lends its title to the show is a book, constructed by the artist with handmade paper, comprising thirty-four pages of markings, begun in December 1983 and finished in 2002, with unruly smears of red, orange, and blue, flowerlike forms, a text from a Navajo night chant, and a haiku by Tan Taigi (1709–1771).

Marking what would have been Twombly’s ninetieth birthday, this exhibition will coincide with the presentation of his epic ten-part painting Coronation of Sesostris (2000) and related works at Gagosian 980 Madison Avenue.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition. The catalogue raisonné of drawings will be available for sale at Gagosian Shop and through Gagosian.