Menu

Cy Twombly

Lepanto

January 19–February 23, 2002
555 West 24th Street, New York

Installation view © Cy Twombly Foundation

Installation view

© Cy Twombly Foundation

Installation view © Cy Twombly Foundation

Installation view

© Cy Twombly Foundation

Works Exhibited

Cy Twombly, Lepanto (Part II), 2001 Acrylic, wax crayon, and pencil on canvas, 85 ½ × 123 inches (217.2 × 312.4 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Lepanto (Part II), 2001

Acrylic, wax crayon, and pencil on canvas, 85 ½ × 123 inches (217.2 × 312.4 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Lepanto (Part IV), 2001 Acrylic, wax crayon, and graphite on canvas, 85 ¼ × 122 ¾ inches (216.5 × 311.8 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Lepanto (Part IV), 2001

Acrylic, wax crayon, and graphite on canvas, 85 ¼ × 122 ¾ inches (216.5 × 311.8 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Lepanto (Part VII), 2001 Acrylic and wax crayon on canvas, 85 ¼ × 134 inches (216.5 × 340.4 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Lepanto (Part VII), 2001

Acrylic and wax crayon on canvas, 85 ¼ × 134 inches (216.5 × 340.4 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

About

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Cy Twombly. Lepanto, a painting in twelve parts, was first exhibited at the 49th Biennale di Venezia in the summer of 2001.

This suite of paintings depicts the famous sixteenth-century sea battle of the combined European forces under Venetian leadership against the Ottoman invasion. The glorious sequence of panels is to be absorbed as a single image, a panoramic portrayal of war on a heroic scale where the viewer stands in the midst of the battle through to the destruction by fire of the Turkish fleet.

Richard Howard writes in the exhibition catalogue:

As grim and sometimes uproarious as the panels are, their cumulative effect, as we move among them, or step back to take in the whole sequence as a single image, is one of luminous intensity. We witness historical evidence through a personal meditation on tragedy. Certainly Lepanto is an accounting, but not a final summing up. We are still, with Twombly, in the thick of the fight.

A fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Richard Howard and Kirk Varnedoe will accompany the exhibition.

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.