Cy TWOMBLY (1928-2011)
Except otherwise stated, all results below include the premium.
See also : USA II Abstract art Abstract art II Art on paper
Chronology : 1957 1959 1960-1969 1962 1968 1969 1970-1979 1970 2000-2009
See also : USA II Abstract art Abstract art II Art on paper
Chronology : 1957 1959 1960-1969 1962 1968 1969 1970-1979 1970 2000-2009
1957 Sunset
2017 SOLD for $ 27.3M by Christie's
Cy Twombly is interested with the illusion of gesture in the art of Franz Kline. By chance in 1953 he spends his military service as a cryptographer. During this mission he begins to draw intertwined scribbles that are tentatively the hidden expression of a primordial feeling.
His art finds at that time a higher complexity. He positions a proto-writing on a large surface with colored pencils. This meaningless writing does not escape the graphology. A rising and colorful proto-writing is a mark of optimism or enthusiasm. The primordial art of Twombly was early admired and analyzed by the semiologists sich as Roland Barthes and Philippe Sollers.
His end goal is to find the origins of thinking, and not just of writing. The American history is too recent for this ambition. In 1957 he spends the summer on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. Dazzled by the atmosphere that transcends time, he decides to live in Italy and meets his future wife in Rome.
In the same year he discovers in Mallarmé's poems the expressive force of silence. Without apparent link with the Achromes, he inscribes his gestures on white surfaces. Sometimes this false writing aggregates and forms an almost imperceptible word.
Sunset, an opus 142 x 180 cm realized in Rome at the end of 1957 with house paint plus various pencils on canvas, generates the word Morte (death, in Italian) which is an encounter with a past. It was sold for $ 27.3M by Christie's on November 15, 2017, lot 17B. Twombly had indeed reinvented here according to his own emotion the creation of the written language : his gesture generated the graphic layout and finally the word.
His art finds at that time a higher complexity. He positions a proto-writing on a large surface with colored pencils. This meaningless writing does not escape the graphology. A rising and colorful proto-writing is a mark of optimism or enthusiasm. The primordial art of Twombly was early admired and analyzed by the semiologists sich as Roland Barthes and Philippe Sollers.
His end goal is to find the origins of thinking, and not just of writing. The American history is too recent for this ambition. In 1957 he spends the summer on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. Dazzled by the atmosphere that transcends time, he decides to live in Italy and meets his future wife in Rome.
In the same year he discovers in Mallarmé's poems the expressive force of silence. Without apparent link with the Achromes, he inscribes his gestures on white surfaces. Sometimes this false writing aggregates and forms an almost imperceptible word.
Sunset, an opus 142 x 180 cm realized in Rome at the end of 1957 with house paint plus various pencils on canvas, generates the word Morte (death, in Italian) which is an encounter with a past. It was sold for $ 27.3M by Christie's on November 15, 2017, lot 17B. Twombly had indeed reinvented here according to his own emotion the creation of the written language : his gesture generated the graphic layout and finally the word.
1959 Poems to the Sea
2013 SOLD for $ 21.7M by Sotheby's
In April 1959 in New York, Twombly marries Tatiana, whose family is Italian. They spend the summer in Sperlonga, a fishing village between Rome and Naples.
The Emperor Tiberius had his summer residence in Sperlonga. His villa included a seaside grotto. Two years before Cy and Tatiana's stay, a one of a kind collection of monumental statues on the theme of the legend of Odysseus had been discovered. The cave had collapsed in 27 CE, forcing the emperor to leave for Capri, and the collection had been forgotten. The three artists identified on one of the sculptures had formed according to Pliny the Elder the team of the Laocoon group.
This direct link with mythical emotions is reinforced by the best symbol of the future : the young wife is pregnant. In a burst of creativity, Twombly paints in a single day in July 1959 in Sperlonga a set of 24 papers of unequal dimensions, between 30 x 31 and 35 x 31 cm, which he calls Poems to the Sea.
The technique is a mixed media on a white ground. The very sparse words and numbers are buried like palimpsests among the lines of an oil painting crushed at the exit of the tube. The most significant hidden word is 'Sappho'. This 24-page abstract pictorial poem was sold for $ 21.7M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2013 from a lower estimate of $ 6M, lot 20.
The Emperor Tiberius had his summer residence in Sperlonga. His villa included a seaside grotto. Two years before Cy and Tatiana's stay, a one of a kind collection of monumental statues on the theme of the legend of Odysseus had been discovered. The cave had collapsed in 27 CE, forcing the emperor to leave for Capri, and the collection had been forgotten. The three artists identified on one of the sculptures had formed according to Pliny the Elder the team of the Laocoon group.
This direct link with mythical emotions is reinforced by the best symbol of the future : the young wife is pregnant. In a burst of creativity, Twombly paints in a single day in July 1959 in Sperlonga a set of 24 papers of unequal dimensions, between 30 x 31 and 35 x 31 cm, which he calls Poems to the Sea.
The technique is a mixed media on a white ground. The very sparse words and numbers are buried like palimpsests among the lines of an oil painting crushed at the exit of the tube. The most significant hidden word is 'Sappho'. This 24-page abstract pictorial poem was sold for $ 21.7M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2013 from a lower estimate of $ 6M, lot 20.
1962 Leda and the Swan
2017 SOLD for $ 53M by Christie's
Cy Twombly visited Italy for the second time in 1957. He perceives that Rome is still retaining the traces of the carnal violence of its mythology and of its antique history, in its monuments and their graffiti but also in the tradition transmitted through all these centuries by poets and artists.
He thus observes the indecipherable graffiti by which ancient human beings desired to record their ephemeral passions . The expression of extreme feelings through abstract art becomes the thread of Cy Twombly's lifelong career. The terrible Roman mythology feeds his inspiration.
He then lives semi-permanently in Rome where he develops his new style which exacerbated all the passions simultaneously : erotic, pornographic, criminal, scatological. He tries to feel by himself all these impulses in a semi-automatic creative act for which he paints directly with his hands and adds his own graffiti.
The rape of Leda by Jupiter in the form of a swan is for him a complete theme, with his sexual act that generates a mythical fecundity.
In 1962 Twombly executed two Leda and the Swan in the same format 191 x 200 cm certainly chosen to give an idea of the life size representation of this scuffle in an abstraction mixing the illusion of bodies and feathers. One of them is exhibited in the Museum Of Modern Art in New York. The other was sold for $ 53M from a lower estimate of $ 35M by Christie's on May 17, 2017, lot 6 B.
The comparison between both works is significant. Their similar explosion demonstrates that the artist's scripture, although based on an impulsive gesture, responds to a pre-defined global conception. The MoMA's Leda is more complete because it includes the usual graffiti missing in the version offered at auction. In both cases in the upper part of the image the small drawing of a modern window appears, symbolizing the artist's message about the timeless character of the passions.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
He thus observes the indecipherable graffiti by which ancient human beings desired to record their ephemeral passions . The expression of extreme feelings through abstract art becomes the thread of Cy Twombly's lifelong career. The terrible Roman mythology feeds his inspiration.
He then lives semi-permanently in Rome where he develops his new style which exacerbated all the passions simultaneously : erotic, pornographic, criminal, scatological. He tries to feel by himself all these impulses in a semi-automatic creative act for which he paints directly with his hands and adds his own graffiti.
The rape of Leda by Jupiter in the form of a swan is for him a complete theme, with his sexual act that generates a mythical fecundity.
In 1962 Twombly executed two Leda and the Swan in the same format 191 x 200 cm certainly chosen to give an idea of the life size representation of this scuffle in an abstraction mixing the illusion of bodies and feathers. One of them is exhibited in the Museum Of Modern Art in New York. The other was sold for $ 53M from a lower estimate of $ 35M by Christie's on May 17, 2017, lot 6 B.
The comparison between both works is significant. Their similar explosion demonstrates that the artist's scripture, although based on an impulsive gesture, responds to a pre-defined global conception. The MoMA's Leda is more complete because it includes the usual graffiti missing in the version offered at auction. In both cases in the upper part of the image the small drawing of a modern window appears, symbolizing the artist's message about the timeless character of the passions.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
1968 Untitled (Blackboard)
1
(New York City)
2015 SOLD for $ 71M by Sotheby's
Life is not expressed in figuration. Cy Twombly tries the rhythm in a musicalist approach. His long stays in Italy provide the model of the antique graffiti, the street art from the antique times : their juxtaposition let imagine some shapes and movements, details can be pornographic, and their fast and furtive execution is an example of a graphical application of the subconscious.
From 1966 he pursues his semiotic research towards psychoanalysis. On the black canvas that resembles the chalkboard of infant schools, he draws in white his messages which are indecipherable in direct reading but must speak to the mind of the viewer.
An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. He paints canvases in a uniform dark gray on which he draws with a wax crayon the figures of his subconscious. These artworks are described under the generic term Blackboards chosen by art critics, not by the artist.
The first tests combine the jerky action of the hand, expressing the reflex, with geometric figures that make a link with the former graffiti of the artist. This mixed meaning blurs his intention to express life. His Blackboards do not need to rely on the persistence of ancient impulses. The most significant Blackboards will be performed in New York City.
An early example, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2005. An oblique line of high jerky loops runs throughout the width.
On November 11, 2015, Sotheby's sold at lot 18 for $ 71M a Blackboard painted with a white wax crayon by Twombly, also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example above.
The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six endless horizontal lines within very regular limits. The gradual width of the six lines adds an illusion that the image is tilted with respect to its canvas. This opus is also one of the largest, 173 x 229 cm.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
From 1966 he pursues his semiotic research towards psychoanalysis. On the black canvas that resembles the chalkboard of infant schools, he draws in white his messages which are indecipherable in direct reading but must speak to the mind of the viewer.
An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. He paints canvases in a uniform dark gray on which he draws with a wax crayon the figures of his subconscious. These artworks are described under the generic term Blackboards chosen by art critics, not by the artist.
The first tests combine the jerky action of the hand, expressing the reflex, with geometric figures that make a link with the former graffiti of the artist. This mixed meaning blurs his intention to express life. His Blackboards do not need to rely on the persistence of ancient impulses. The most significant Blackboards will be performed in New York City.
An early example, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2005. An oblique line of high jerky loops runs throughout the width.
On November 11, 2015, Sotheby's sold at lot 18 for $ 71M a Blackboard painted with a white wax crayon by Twombly, also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example above.
The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six endless horizontal lines within very regular limits. The gradual width of the six lines adds an illusion that the image is tilted with respect to its canvas. This opus is also one of the largest, 173 x 229 cm.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
2
(New York City)
2016 SOLD for $ 37M by Sotheby's
Many Blackboards were prepared in New York City. This series is prolific, demonstrating that the artist feels being close to achieve his goal. Comparing his works facilitates the interpretation of his thought.
A Blackboard painted in 1968 was sold for $ 71M by Sotheby's in 2015. Its structure is one of the most complex with six horizontal lines, each one being composed of a tight pattern of endless loops.
On May 11, 2016, Sotheby's sold as lot 21 for $ 37M a painting of nearly identical composition, made in the same year in a smaller format, 152 x 173 cm. The flexibility of the loops is the same, certainly not by imitation but by the effect of the same musical influence, proving that the artist completely controls the reflex movement of his hand in the more or less spirited performance of his proto-writing .
This artwork is experimental. The line is blue on a gray background darker than usual. The intent of this change is not only aesthetic. An additional white wax is used by contrast in the lower left of the image to simulate vertical signs of wear of the board in an opposite movement from the tilted orientation of the blue loops.
The artist did not reuse this feature. Bought to Castelli in 1969 by its current owner, the unique Blackboard in blue had never been exhibited or published.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
A Blackboard painted in 1968 was sold for $ 71M by Sotheby's in 2015. Its structure is one of the most complex with six horizontal lines, each one being composed of a tight pattern of endless loops.
On May 11, 2016, Sotheby's sold as lot 21 for $ 37M a painting of nearly identical composition, made in the same year in a smaller format, 152 x 173 cm. The flexibility of the loops is the same, certainly not by imitation but by the effect of the same musical influence, proving that the artist completely controls the reflex movement of his hand in the more or less spirited performance of his proto-writing .
This artwork is experimental. The line is blue on a gray background darker than usual. The intent of this change is not only aesthetic. An additional white wax is used by contrast in the lower left of the image to simulate vertical signs of wear of the board in an opposite movement from the tilted orientation of the blue loops.
The artist did not reuse this feature. Bought to Castelli in 1969 by its current owner, the unique Blackboard in blue had never been exhibited or published.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1969 Untitled (Bolsena)
1
2015 SOLD for $ 43M by Christie's
From May to October 1969 Cy Twombly spends the summer in a Renaissance palace above Lake Bolsena, where he isolates himself to deepen his quest about the primordial generation of human energy through movement. Aged 41, he is certainly less sensitive to pornography and more to communication.
His new style will be comparable to a street art whose insignificant details form an opulent waterfall of graffiti through the spontaneity of the artist's gesture. He works with house paint, lead or graphite, wax pencil and sometimes felt-tip pen on canvases 200 x 240 cm.
Temporarily renouncing the dark background, he distributes his floating forms on a cream or off-white surface. Color is limited to pencil lines. Rectangles and numerals replace in this waterfall his previous graffitis of the antique passions.
This sub-series inspired by the Apollo 11 lunar mission is made of 14 Untitled (Bolsena) 200 x 240 cm canvases.
One of them was sold for $ 15.4M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013.
Another opus was sold for $ 43M by Christie's on May 13, 2015, lot 43B. It is very precisely dated July 10, 1969, during the preparation phase of the space mission.
His new style will be comparable to a street art whose insignificant details form an opulent waterfall of graffiti through the spontaneity of the artist's gesture. He works with house paint, lead or graphite, wax pencil and sometimes felt-tip pen on canvases 200 x 240 cm.
Temporarily renouncing the dark background, he distributes his floating forms on a cream or off-white surface. Color is limited to pencil lines. Rectangles and numerals replace in this waterfall his previous graffitis of the antique passions.
This sub-series inspired by the Apollo 11 lunar mission is made of 14 Untitled (Bolsena) 200 x 240 cm canvases.
One of them was sold for $ 15.4M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013.
Another opus was sold for $ 43M by Christie's on May 13, 2015, lot 43B. It is very precisely dated July 10, 1969, during the preparation phase of the space mission.
2
2020 SOLD for $ 39M by Christie's
An Untitled (Bolsena) 200 x 240 cm was sold for $ 39M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 16.
1970 Untitled (Blackboard)
1
(not located by the artist)
2014 SOLD for $ 70M by Christie's
In May 1969 Twombly had begun his stay in Bolsena by reinterpreting his blackboards without the pseudo-writing in loops. The result is rather austere. A Bolsena blackboard 200 x 240 cm was sold for $ 6.2M by Phillips de Pury on May 10, 2012.
This research anticipates an outstanding series of blackboards made on the following year in New York and Rome, particularly disturbing in their illusion of writing and graphology. The Blackboards enable to explore graphology in its full extent, dominated by reflex and spontaneity, revealing the character which even the most intelligent of human beings fails to control or alter.
The comparison between two canvases painted in 1970 show that the artist is seeking to express the diversity of humanity as well as his own creativity. Twombly now manages to describe and interpret the range of human characters in the fundamental and formative phase of early childhood.
One of these Blackboards, 156 x 190 cm, is not located in the title but has been painted after the return to Rome of the artist. It was sold for $ 70M from a lower estimate of $ 35M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 20.
Here, the fake writing is made of very regular loops as if they came from an intelligent and quiet schoolchild, but their four lines widens from top to bottom in a false perspective. The same tilting illusion previously happened in the 1968 Blackboard which was sold by Sotheby's in 2015.
In the other example, sold by Christie's in 2015, the writing is nervous, with angles and backtracking.
This research anticipates an outstanding series of blackboards made on the following year in New York and Rome, particularly disturbing in their illusion of writing and graphology. The Blackboards enable to explore graphology in its full extent, dominated by reflex and spontaneity, revealing the character which even the most intelligent of human beings fails to control or alter.
The comparison between two canvases painted in 1970 show that the artist is seeking to express the diversity of humanity as well as his own creativity. Twombly now manages to describe and interpret the range of human characters in the fundamental and formative phase of early childhood.
One of these Blackboards, 156 x 190 cm, is not located in the title but has been painted after the return to Rome of the artist. It was sold for $ 70M from a lower estimate of $ 35M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 20.
Here, the fake writing is made of very regular loops as if they came from an intelligent and quiet schoolchild, but their four lines widens from top to bottom in a false perspective. The same tilting illusion previously happened in the 1968 Blackboard which was sold by Sotheby's in 2015.
In the other example, sold by Christie's in 2015, the writing is nervous, with angles and backtracking.
2
1970 (Rome)
2021 SOLD for $ 42M by Sotheby's
On May 12, 2021, Sotheby's sold for $ 42M an Untitled (Rome), house paint and wax crayon on canvas 155 x 195 cm executed by Twombly in 1970, lot 110.
This piece appears as the counterpart of the Blackboard opus sold for $ 70M by Christie's in 2014. Their size are nearly identical, and both are displaying four rows of loops with an overall tilting effect.
Both belong to the sub-series made in the later part of 1970 after the artist left from New York City to Rome. Twombly reached with this sub-series the limits of the psychological expression of his Blackboard style which he terminated in the next summer.
The details of the loops are also similar, but the piece for sale has an overlapping of the bands while the other example displays a neat separation. This tiny difference is sufficient to generate an opposite feeling. One of them expresses control, order and intention while the other expresses anarchy, chaos and accident.
This piece appears as the counterpart of the Blackboard opus sold for $ 70M by Christie's in 2014. Their size are nearly identical, and both are displaying four rows of loops with an overall tilting effect.
Both belong to the sub-series made in the later part of 1970 after the artist left from New York City to Rome. Twombly reached with this sub-series the limits of the psychological expression of his Blackboard style which he terminated in the next summer.
The details of the loops are also similar, but the piece for sale has an overlapping of the bands while the other example displays a neat separation. This tiny difference is sufficient to generate an opposite feeling. One of them expresses control, order and intention while the other expresses anarchy, chaos and accident.
3
(New York City)
2015 SOLD for £ 19.7M by Christie's
Located in New York City and executed in 1970, a Blackboard 145 x 178 cm in nervous line with jerky points and backtrackings was sold for $ 17.5M including premium by Sotheby's on May 9, 2012 and for £ 19.7M by Christie's on February 11, 2015, lot 26.
2005 Bacchus
2017 SOLD for $ 46M by Christie's
Cy Twombly has always been hypersensitive to political violence whether it comes from myth or from current events. He lives in Gaeta which also houses a NATO naval base. The hypothesis that his series dedicated to Bacchus were triggered by Mediterranean maneuvers during the Iraq war can be considered.
His Bacchus are abstract paintings consisting of a tangle of vermilion loops on a light flesh-colored background. In 2004 the first set of six includes inscriptions from Greek attesting that Bacchus is not here the god of drinking and debauchery but is in his other role of personification of furious madness.
These lasso loops rise and fall between the top and bottom of the picture in endless spirals. Painted by the artist with a wide brush at the end of a long stick, they are not comparable with the proto-writing loops on his blackboards 35 years earlier. Thin vertical drippings give an idea of the sticky wetness of blood or wine.
Twombly does not immediately exhibit this first series because its vertical format 2.66 m high is not conducive enough to the burst of feelings and perhaps also because his art must be expressive by itself to get rid of the inscriptions. The opus V was sold for $ 15.4M including premium by Sotheby's on May 11, 2016.
The artist makes the second series in 2005 in eight paintings that are immediately exhibited as a whole set by Gagosian in New York. The largest variant later numbered V, acrylic on canvas 325 x 494 cm, was sold for $ 46M by Christie's on November 15, 2017, lot 15 B.
In 2008 paintings V and VII from the 2005 group are judiciously positioned side by side during a temporary exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. The artist appreciates that he had not given a sufficient breadth to his own creation. He then executes a third series of six paintings. This ultimate series of Bacchus is not the apotheosis of a hostile god but the culmination of the effort of Cy Twombly's entire career for expressing through abstraction the blind rages of the real world.
His Bacchus are abstract paintings consisting of a tangle of vermilion loops on a light flesh-colored background. In 2004 the first set of six includes inscriptions from Greek attesting that Bacchus is not here the god of drinking and debauchery but is in his other role of personification of furious madness.
These lasso loops rise and fall between the top and bottom of the picture in endless spirals. Painted by the artist with a wide brush at the end of a long stick, they are not comparable with the proto-writing loops on his blackboards 35 years earlier. Thin vertical drippings give an idea of the sticky wetness of blood or wine.
Twombly does not immediately exhibit this first series because its vertical format 2.66 m high is not conducive enough to the burst of feelings and perhaps also because his art must be expressive by itself to get rid of the inscriptions. The opus V was sold for $ 15.4M including premium by Sotheby's on May 11, 2016.
The artist makes the second series in 2005 in eight paintings that are immediately exhibited as a whole set by Gagosian in New York. The largest variant later numbered V, acrylic on canvas 325 x 494 cm, was sold for $ 46M by Christie's on November 15, 2017, lot 15 B.
In 2008 paintings V and VII from the 2005 group are judiciously positioned side by side during a temporary exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. The artist appreciates that he had not given a sufficient breadth to his own creation. He then executes a third series of six paintings. This ultimate series of Bacchus is not the apotheosis of a hostile god but the culmination of the effort of Cy Twombly's entire career for expressing through abstraction the blind rages of the real world.
