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Cy Twombly

A Survey of Photographs 1954–2011

September 6–29, 2012
Britannia Street, London

Installation view Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view

Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view

Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view

Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view

Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view

Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Installation view

Artwork © Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Works Exhibited

Cy Twombly, St Barth’s, 2011 Color dry-print, 17 × 11 inches (43.2 × 27.9 cm), edition of 3© Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly, St Barth’s, 2011

Color dry-print, 17 × 11 inches (43.2 × 27.9 cm), edition of 3
© Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

About

In tribute to the late Cy Twombly, Gagosian will present his last paintings, together with sixty-six of his photographs.

The eight untitled paintings are closely related to the Camino Real group that inaugurated Gagosian Paris in 2010. The inimitable, exuberant paintwork and bold, intense colors typify the freedom with which Twombly worked, never restricted to a single reference. Even in the face of his impending death, their elegiac power, vivid palette, and ardent gestures pulse with the energies of the new.

The intimate photographs range from early studio impressions taken in the 1950s to a group of landscapes taken in St. Barths last year. Since 2008, major exhibitions of the artist’s photographs have been held at Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam; Museum Brandhorst, Munich; and the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; however, this is the first time that this lesser-known aspect of Twombly’s oeuvre has been presented in such depth in the United Kingdom.

Twombly remains one of the world’s most revered contemporary artists, whose central and ongoing relevance to the art of the present is attested to by a stream of recent survey exhibitions in leading international institutions. Since the opening of the first Gagosian in New York in the mid-1980s, Twombly has been a cornerstone of the gallery. He made many exhibitions there over the last twenty-five years, each one as surprising and memorable as the last, from the Bolsena Paintings (1990) to The Coronation of Sesostris (2001) to Lepanto (2002), Bacchus (2005–06), and The Rose (2009). Ten Paintings and a Sculpture (2004), Three Notes for Salalah (2008), Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (2009), and Camino Real (2010) inaugurated new galleries in London, Rome, Athens, and Paris respectively.

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Image of Cy Twombly's Treatise on the Veil (Second Version), 1970

Cy Twombly: Imperfect Paradise

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.

Black and white image of the interior of Cy Twombly’s apartment in Rome

Cy Twombly: Making Past Present

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.

Cy Twombly, Untitled (Say Goodbye, Catallus, to the Shores of Asia Minor), 1994, oil, acrylic, oil stick, crayon, and graphite on three canvases,

Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor

Thierry Greub tracks the literary references in Cy Twomblys epic painting of 1994.

Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006), on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Summer 2021

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.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1990, acrylic, wax crayon, and pencil on handmade paper, 30 ⅝ × 21 ⅝ inches (77.8 × 54.8 cm)

Twombly and the Poets

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

Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Spring 2021

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.