Cy Twombly (1928–2011) developed a gestural vocabulary in which each line and color is infused with energy, spirituality, and meaning. Emerging as a prominent figure in the mid-1950s following extensive travels throughout Europe and North Africa, he produced works that are simultaneously personal and mythological, allowing narrative, language, and inner visions to erupt from his intimate, abstract notations.

Twombly was born in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia, and studied art in Boston and New York, then at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the early 1950s. Although he was a contemporary of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, his work soon digressed from the aims of American postwar abstraction. While prevailing tendencies of the period, such as Pop art, sought to abandon historical narratives altogether, Twombly directed his focus toward ancient, classical, and modern poetic traditions. In the late 1950s he moved to Italy, where he produced colorful, diagrammatic works, such as Ode to Psyche (1960), that feature erotic allusions and sly jokes while maintaining an abstract charge. Shortly thereafter the sebaceous, bright colors of these works gave way to the more austere grays and blues of the “blackboard” paintings, in which terse, white scrawls and loops recall the powdery effects of chalk on a blackboard. As Twombly continued to work in various locations over the following decades—including Rome, Lexington, and his final residence, in Gaeta, Italy—places, landscapes, and natural forms came to figure prominently in his drawings, collages, photographs, and watercolors.

For Twombly, the poetic and the rational were not mutually exclusive. Collage, which engaged him briefly in 1959, then began to appear more regularly in 1971, allies Twombly to the Dadaists and their descendants, such as Rauschenberg and Johns. Visual information from everyday life—travel postcards, reproductions of paintings, scientific illustrations, personal drawings, and more—entered his work as a way to explore the potential of both structure and meaning.

From his student days on, Twombly also captured his daily life in photographs. He recorded the verdant landscapes of Virginia and the coasts of Italy; close-up details of ancient buildings and sculptures; studio interiors; and still lifes of objects and flowers. Beginning in the early 1990s, he used specialized copiers to enlarge his Polaroid images on matte paper, resulting in subtle distortions that approximate the timeless qualities of his paintings and sculptures.

In 1995 the Cy Twombly Gallery opened across the street from the Menil Collection in Houston. A collaboration between the Menil, Dia Foundation, and Twombly himself, the gallery serves as a permanent home for a number of important works made between 1953 and 2004. Included is the series of paintings Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair (1985), which features floral forms in deep reds, pinks, and purples, with quotations from Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Giacomo Leopardi. In 2010 Twombly was selected to install a permanent work at the Louvre: a painted ceiling for the Salle des Bronzes. The Ceiling spans 3,750 square feet and pays homage to the greatest Hellenic sculptors, from Phidias to Praxiteles, each of their names inscribed over an immense blue sky populated by floating, cosmic orbs.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2015
New York, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. April 23 – July 2.
travelled to:
London, Gagosian Gallery. October 10 – December 12.
Tokyo, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art. Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper. May 3 – August 30.
Capri, Casa Malaparte. Cy Twombly at Casa Malaparte. July 3.
Basel, Kunstmuseum Basel. Cy Twombly. Painting & Sculpture. September 12, 2015 - January 31, 2016.
Rome, American Academy. Cy Twombly: Photographer. October 7 – November 22.
London, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly: Photographs. October 10 – December 12.
2016
Sakura, Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. Cy Twombly Photographs: Lyrical Variations. April 23 – August 28.
Berlin, Galerie Bastian. Cy Twombly: Photographs. April 29 – December 3.
Munich, Museum Brandhorst. Cy Twombly: in the Studio. May 31 – August 28, 2018.
Baden-Baden, Museum Frieder Burda. Cy Twombly: Ausgewählte Fotografien / Selected Photographs 1944 - 2006. June 11 – October 9.
Ibiza, Museu d’Art Contemporani. Cy Twombly: Lux. June 18 – October 2.
Cologne, Galerie Karsten Greve. Cy Twombly: Malerei auf Papier. September 2 – October 29.
Paris, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou. Cy Twombly. November 30 – April 23, 2017.
Paris, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. Orpheus. December 1 – March 18, 2017.
2017
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Cy Twombly's Iliad. May 20 – October 8.
Athens, Museum of Cycladic Art. Divine Dialogues: Cy Twombly and Greek Antiquity. May 25 – September 3.
Athens, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. May 25 – July 29.
Zurich, Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG. Cy Twombly. June 8 – September 29.
2018
New York City, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. In Beauty it is Finished. Drawings 1951 - 2008. March 8 – April 25.
New York City, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. Coronation of Sesostris. March 8 – April 28.
Beirut, Sursock Museum. Cy Twombly: Photographs. March 30 – May 7.
traveled to:
Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, Château La Coste. Cy Twombly: Photographs. August 26 – October 28.
2019
London, Bastian. Cy Twombly - Natural History. April 26 – June 15.
London, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly: Sculpture. September 30 – December 21.
2021
Rome, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. Souvenirs of Time. October 30 – November 13.
2022
Rome, Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio. Un/veiled. Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations. May 20 – June 11.
Los Angeles, Getty Center. Cy Twombly: Making Past Present. August 2 – October 30.
travelled to:
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts. Making Past Present: Cy Twombly. January 14 – May 7, 2023.
Beverly Hills, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. September 15 – December 17.
travelled to:
New York, Gagosian Gallery. Cy Twombly. January 20 – March 4, 2023.
2023
Marrakech, Musée Yves Saint Laurent. Cy Twombly, Morocco 1952/1953. March 4 – July 2.
Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble. Cy Twombly. Œuvre sur papier (1973–1977). June 3 – September 24.
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Cy Twombly, Morocco 1952/1953. September 13 – January 7, 2024.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2015
Zürich, Kunsthaus Zürich. Meisterzeichnungen. 100 Jahre Grafische Sammlung im Kunsthaus Zürich. January 23 - April 15.
Nottingham, Nottingham Contemporary. Glenn Ligon: Encounters and Collisions. April 3 - June 14.
travelled to:
Liverpool, Tate Liverpool. June 30 – October 18.
Paris, Grand Palais. Icônes américaines: Chefs d’œuvre du SFMOMA et de la collection Fischer. April 8 – July 11.
travelled to:
Aix-en-Provence, Musée Granet. June 11 – October 18.
Aspen (Colorado), Aspen Art Museum. The Blue of Distance. April 10 – June 28.
Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art. Leap before you Look. Black Mountain College. 1933 - 1957. October 15 – January 24, 2016.
travelled to:
Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, University of California. February 21, 2016 - May 14, 2016.
Columbus, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University. September 17, 2016 – January 1, 2017
Milan, Fondazione Marconi. Una collezione di “piccolo formato”. November – January 23, 2016.
2016
New York, Dominique Lévy. Drawing Then: Innovation and Influence in American Drawings of Sixties. January 27 – March 19
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible. March 18 – September 4.
Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi. La Grande Arte dei Guggenheim. March 19 – July 24.
Paris, Musée Rodin. Entre sculpture et phtotographie. Huit artistes chez Rodin. April 12 – July 17.
San Francisco, Gagosian Gallery. Plane.Site. May 18 – September 17.
Paris, Gagosian Gallery. Lexicon. June 1 – July 30.
London, Ordovas. Artists and Lovers. September 16 – October 29.
Città di Castello, Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, Ex Seccattoi del Tabacco. Burri: lo spazio di materia tra Europa e USA. September 24, 2016 – January 6, 2017.
Munich, Pinakothek der Moderne. Der Stifter, der Anstifter war, weil er wusste, dass die Kunst für alle ist. Die Schenkung der Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne. November 11, 2016 – February 12, 2017.
2017
Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet. The Great Graphic Boom. Amerikansk grafikk 1960 - 1990 / The Great Graphic Boom. Amerikanische Graphik 1960–1990. March 3 – May 28.
traveled to:
Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. July 14 – November 5.
London, The British Museum. The American Dream: pop to the present. March 9 – June 18.
Rome, Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici. Art Club: #16 Cy Twombly. April 27 – 30.
Venice, Palazzo Fortuny. Intuition. May 13 – November 26.
Dallas [Texas], Nasher Sculpture Center. Foundations: Sculpture and Literature. May 20 – August 13.
Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Colección Alicia Koplowitz - Group Omega Capital. July 28 – October 23.
Toyama, Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design. LIFE: In Search of a Paradise. August 26 – November 5.
Dallas [Texas], Nasher Sculpture Center. Foundations: Tom Sachs. September 16 – January 7, 2018.
Hong Kong, Gagosian Gallery. Arcadia. September 26 – November 11.
London, Christie's Mayfair. About the Line. September 28 – November 24.
London, The National Gallery. Monochrome: Painting in Black and White. October 30, 2017 – February 18, 2018.
traveled to:
Dusseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast. Black & White: Von Dürer bis Elíasson. March 22, 2018 – July 15, 2018.
New York, Almine Rech Gallery. Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go. October 31 – December 16.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art. The Long Run. November 11 - May 5, 2018.
Frankfurt am Main, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst. A Tale of Two Worlds. Experimentelle Kunst Lateinamerikas der 1940er - bis 80er-Jahre im Dialog mit der Sammlung des MMK. November 25, 2017 – April 2, 2018.
traveled to:
Buenos Aires, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. A Tale of Two Worlds. Experimental Latin American Art in Dialogue with the MMK Collection, 1940s - 1980s. July 7, 2018 – October 14, 2018.
2018
Sélestat, Frac Alsace. Phénomènes. February 3 – May 27.
Margate [Kent], Turner Contemporary. Journeys with "The Waste Land." February 3 – May 7.
Vienna, Leopold Museum. WOW! The Heidi Horten Collection. February 16 – July 29.
New York, Venus Over Manhattan. Sculptures of Existence: Giacometti, Twombly, West. May 3 – June 9.
Krems an der Donau, Kunsthalle Krems. Picasso – Gorky – Warhol. Sculptures and Works on Paper. Hubert Looser Collection. July 1 – November 4.
traveled to:
Zurich, Kunsthaus. September 20, 2019 – January 5, 2020.
San Francisco, Gagosian Gallery. Echoes. Artschwager, Chamberlain, Twombly, Varejão, Wall, Weatherford. July 19 – August 31.
New York, Simon Lee Gallery. The Tissue of Memory. September 12 – November 10.
New York, Lévy Gorvy. Intimate Infinite. September 6 – October 24.
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera. December 17 – November 26, 2020.
Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art. Masterpieces of the National Museum of Art, Osaka. Clues for Art Appreciation. December 18 – February 5, 2019.
traveled to:
Toyoashi, Toyoashi City Museum of Art & History. February 16, 2019 – March 24, 2019.
2019
Avignon, Collection Lambert. Francesco Vezzoli. Le Lacrime dei poeti. March 2 – June 10.
Lens, Musée du Louvre-Lens. Homère. March 27 – July 22.
London, Waddington Custot. Writings on the Wall. May 17 – June 30.
Bonn, Bundeskunsthalle. Goethe: Transformation of the World. May 17 – September 15.
Munich, Brandhorst Museum. Forever Young. May 24 – April 26, 2020.
London, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. Alvaro Barrington: Artists I Steal From. June 5 – August 9.
Sakura City [Chiba], Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. Painting into Sculpture - Embodiment in Form. September 14 – December 8, 2019.
New York, LX. On the Turn: Selections from the Collection of Emily Fisher Landau. October 10 - December 6.
New York, Alexander Berggruen. Words. October 11 – November 26.
Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof. Time for Fragments. Works from the Marx Collection and the Collection of the Nationalgalerie. November 11 – October 4, 2020.
London, The British Museum. Troy: Myth and Reality. November 21 – March 8, 2020.
Málaga, Museo Picasso Màlaga. Dialogues with Picasso. December 31 – February 3, 2024.
2020
Paris, Gagosian Gallery. Blanc sur Blanc. January 16 – March 7, 2020.
London, Somerset House. Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi. January 30 – April 26, 2020.
Münster, Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso. Beauty is a Line. Von Cy Twombly bis Gerhard Richter. February 1 – May 24, 2020.
London, Ordovas. Monochrome No.2. February 11 – April 25, 2020.
New York, Gagosian Gallery. Duino Elegies. March 5 – April 11, 2020.
2021
Hong Kong, Gagosian Gallery. Hong Kong Exchange. January 28 – April 30.
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. Abstraction and Calligraphy. February 15 – June 12.
London, Luxembourg+Co. Lost in Italy. May 6 – July 3.
Sopot, Poland, State Art Gallery. From Black Mountain College to Pop Art. Postwar Art from the United States in the Collection of Archiv der Avantgarden. May 14 – October 3.
Paris, Palais de Tokyo. Anne Imhof, Natures Mortes. May 22 – October 24.
Vienna, MUMOK. Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. Enjoy - the Mumok Collection in Change. June 19 – March 13.
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Hey! Did you know that art does not exist…The Sylvio Perlstein Collection: From Dada to Now. July 27 - January 7, 2022.
Avignon, Collection Lambert. How to Disappear... September 25 – January 2, 2022.
London, Bastian Gallery. Jeff Koons & Cy Twombly: Primal Gestures. October 12 – December 4.
Metz, Centre Pompidou-Metz. Écrire, c'est dessiner. November 6 – February 21, 2022.
London, The Courtauld Gallery. Modern Drawings: The Karshan Gift. November 19 – January 9, 2022.
Frankfurt, Städel Museum. Tokens of Friendship. November 24 – March 6, 2022.
2022
Los Angeles, Christie's. Twombly Marden Fishman Whitney. February 15 – March 11.
London, Whitechapel Gallery. A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920 – 2020. February 24 – June 5.
Rome, Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici. Scribbling and Doodling. From Leonardo da Vinci to Cy Twombly. March 3 – May 22.
Paris, Beaux-Arts. February 8, 2023 – April 23, 2023.
Tokyo, Aritzon Museum. Dialogues of the Muses: The Paris Opera House and the Arts. November 5 – February 5, 2023.
Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. Street Life. The Street in Art from Kirchner to Streuli. November 12 – March 5, 2023.
Miami, Lowe Art Museum - University of Miami. A Fine Line: Highlights from the Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation. November 17 – February 26, 2023.
Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art. Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection. November 20 – April 16, 2023.
2023
New York, David Zwirner. Roma/New York, 1953 - 1964. January 12 – February 25.
Paris, Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce. Avant l'Orage. February – September.
New York, Hill Art Foundation. Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained. April 21 – July 21.
Munich, Museum Brandhorst. La vie en rose. Brueghel, Monet, Twombly. May 5 – October 22.
Minneapolis, The Walker Art Center. Among Friends: The Generosity of Judy and Ken Dayton. June 10 – May 19, 2024.
New York, Hill Art Foundation. The Sea, the Sky, a Window. September 22 – February 17, 2024.
Basel, Kunstmuseum. Jasper Johns. The Artist as Collector. September 30 – February 4, 2024.
Milan, Fondazione Prada. Paraventi. Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries. October 26 – February 22, 2024.
Mexico City, Museo Jumex. Todo se vuelve más ligero. November 18 – February 11, 2024.
St. Moritz, Galerie Karsten Greve. Masterpieces. December 21 – February 5, 2024.
2024
Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi. L'Incanto di Orfeo. March 20 – September 8.
Washington D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Revolutions. March 22 – April 25, 2025.

Collections

Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria
Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore City, Maryland, USA
Berkley Art Museum, Berkley, California, USA
Broad Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, Italy
GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, Italy
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
Hamburger Bahnhof (Marx Collection), Berlin, Germany
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA
Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachussetts, USA
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA
Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Kunstpalais Erlangen (Municipal Collection Erlangen), Erlangen, Germany
Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, USA
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, USA
Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, USA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, USA
Mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria
Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France
Musée du Louvre (Salles des Bronzes Antiques), Paris, France
Museion, Bolzano, Italy
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Museu Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal
Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Museum Mudam Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachussetts, USA
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas, USA
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C, USA
National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Palazzo Grassi (Pinault Collection), Venice, Italy
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, USA
Smart Museum of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D. C, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Staats Galerie, Stockard, Germany
Stanford University (Cantor Arts Center’s Collection), Stanford, California, USA
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Syracuse University Art Galleries, Syracuse, NY, USA
Tate, London, UK
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA
Washington Art Consortium, Bellingham, Washington, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

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