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Cy Twombly

Coronation of Sesostris

March 8–April 28, 2018
980 Madison Avenue, New York

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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

Works Exhibited

Cy Twombly, Coronation of Sesostris (Part V), 2000 Acrylic, wax crayon, and lead pencil on canvas, 81 × 61 ½ inches (206 × 156.5 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Coronation of Sesostris (Part V), 2000

Acrylic, wax crayon, and lead pencil on canvas, 81 × 61 ½ inches (206 × 156.5 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

About

The past is a springboard for me. . . . Ancient things are new things. Everything lives in the moment; that’s the only time it can live, but its influence can go on forever.
—Cy Twombly

Gagosian is pleased to present Coronation of Sesostris, Cy Twombly’s epic painting that was shown for the first time at Gagosian 980 Madison Avenue in 2000. The exhibition coincides with In Beauty it is finished: Drawings 1951–2008, at Gagosian 21st Street, the first career-spanning presentation of Twombly’s works on paper.

Coronation of Sesostris (2000) is a painting cycle in ten parts. Begun in Gaeta, Italy, and completed in Lexington, Virginia, it combines Twombly’s graphic inventiveness and poetic sense of history, rhythm, and elision.

In his Histories, Herodotus recounts the conquests of the Egyptian pharaoh Sesostris, who led an army northward overland to Asia Minor, fighting his way westward until he crossed into Europe, where he defeated the Scythians and Thracians. In Twombly’s interpretation, this war-making, world-building ancient figure is a given fantastical meta-narrative, depicted in the arc of a single blazing day in Egypt from sunrise to journey’s end.

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Cy Twombly: Coronation of Sesostris

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.

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.