Installation video
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Installation view
Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Cy Twombly
Untitled (In Beauty it is finished), 1983–2002 (detail)
Acrylic, wax crayon, pencil, and pen on handmade paper in unbound handmade book, 36 pages, each page: 22 ⅜ × 15 ¾ inches (56.8 × 40 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation
Cy Twombly
Untitled, 2001
Acrylic, wax crayon, and cut-and-pasted paper on paper, 48 ⅞ × 39 inches (124 × 99 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever
Cy Twombly
Untitled (Gaeta), 1990
Acrylic, wax crayon, and pencil on handmade paper, 30 ⅝ × 21 ⅝ inches (77.8 × 54.8 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation
Cy Twombly
Untitled (Gaeta), 1989
Acrylic and tempera on paper mounted on wood panel, 80 × 58 ⅝ inches (203.2 × 148.9 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation
Cy Twombly
Untitled, 1970
Oil and wax crayon on paper, 27 ⅝ × 34 ¼ inches (70 × 87 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation
Cy Twombly
Untitled, 1969
Oil and wax crayon on paper, 27 ⅝ × 34 ¼ inches (70 × 87 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation
Cy Twombly
Untitled, 1954
Gouache, wax crayon, and colored pencil on paper, 19 ⅛ × 25 ¼ inches (48.5 × 64 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation
The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness which ideas can never claim.
—John Crowe Ransom, The World’s Body (1938)
Gagosian is pleased to present the first career-spanning exhibition of drawings and works on paper by Cy Twombly, organized in association with the Cy Twombly Foundation.
The exhibition marks the completion of the Cy Twombly: Catalogue Raisonné of Drawings, with the eighth and final volume. Edited by Nicola Del Roscio, president of the Cy Twombly Foundation, the catalogue raisonné is published by Schirmer/Mosel with the support of the Cy Twombly Foundation. The catalogue’s first volume was published in 2011.
Throughout his career, Twombly sustained an active engagement with drawing, gesture, and making marks on paper. His urgent, meandering lines embody the intimate energies that carry over into his paintings, sculptures, and photographs. Despite their enigmatic qualities, Twombly’s drawings are strikingly articulate in their rhythm, line, and allusions. At once economical and deeply sensual, they contain a timeless language, mediating between ancient and modern culture.
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.
Eleonora Di Erasmo, cocurator of Un/veiled: Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations, a program of concerts, video screenings, and works by Cy Twombly at the Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome, reflects on the resonances and networks of inspiration between the artist and music. The program was the result of an extensive three-year study, done at the behest of Nicola Del Roscio in the Rome and Gaeta offices of the Cy Twombly Foundation, intended to collect, document, and preserve compositions by musicians around the world who have been inspired by Twombly’s work, or to establish an artistic dialogue with them.
In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announced their plan for a survey of Cy Twombly’s artwork alongside selections from their permanent ancient Greek and Roman collection. The survey was postponed due to the lockdowns necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, but was revived in 2022 with a presentation at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from August 2 through October 30. In 2023, the exhibition will arrive at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The curator for the exhibition, Christine Kondoleon, and Kate Nesin, author of Cy Twombly’s Things (2014) and advisor for the show, speak with Gagosian director Mark Francis about the origin of the exhibition and the aesthetic and poetic resonances that give the show its title: Making Past Present.
Thierry Greub tracks the literary references in Cy Twombly’s epic painting of 1994.
The Summer 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006) on its cover.
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.
The Spring 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on its cover.
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.
The Summer 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece 1 (1969) on its cover.
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.
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.
The Fall 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Sinking (2019) by Nathaniel Mary Quinn on its cover.
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’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.
Katharina Grosse reflects on the work of Cy Twombly.
Olivier Berggruen and Mary Jacobus spoke about the works in the inaugural exhibition at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill outpost.
On the occasion of the Morgan Library & Museum’s exhibition of Cy Twombly’s monumental painting Treatise on the Veil (1970) and related drawings, Gagosian director Mark Francis speaks with Isabelle Dervaux, Acquavella Curator of Modern & Contemporary Drawings at the Morgan.
