COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0001875\
image_record_id
aahi0001875\
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
The Italians
Image Title:
full view
Work Dates (display):
1961
Work Dates type:
creation
Work Creator (display):
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Work Creator gender:
male
work_creator_or_agent_gender
male
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
American painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. He studied from 1948 to 1951 at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, at the Museum School in Boston, and at the Art Students League in New York. In 19512 he spent a semester at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, an important period for his involvement with Abstract Expressionism. Action painting, in particular, became his point of departure for the development of a highly personal 'handwriting' that served as a vehicle for literary content. During this period he became friendly with Robert Rauschenberg, travelling with him to North Africa. In Untitled (1952; Basle, Kstmus.) Twombly used long brushstrokes in contrasting tones against a dark background, only to paint partly over them again. This alternation between the visible and the hidden, between clear and murky forms, which became a unifying theme in Twombly's work, has been interpreted by one critic, Gottfried Boehm, as a struggle between memory and oblivion. Twombly's use here of clusters of brushstrokes arranged diagonally across the surface became a recurring feature of his pictures in a variety of forms, for example as perpendicular stripes in the series of lithographs Gladings (Love's Infinite Causes) (1973; see Lambert, pp. 3541). In the mid-1950s Twombly began working also in chalk and pencil, and his paintings assumed a more graphic character. The stylistic changes in his paintings were subsequently registered more or less simultaneously in his prolific production of drawings and prints, which were often executed in series; often he drew contrasting, gradually dissolving lines on a beige or greyish-black ground, sometimes when it was still damp. Panorama (1955; priv. col., see Bastian, 1978, pl. 6), the only surviving dark canvas on a monumental scale, is completely covered with dynamic interweaving white lines truncated by the borders of the picture. The potential of gestural brushwork as a form of handwriting was not exploited by Twombly until he settled in Rome in 1957 and found inspiration in classical landscapes and literature. In Olympia (1957; priv. col., see Bastian, 1978, pl. 11), for instance, coloured lines form signs against a light-coloured background with pale yellow spots. In his paintings and drawings Twombly made direct reference to antiquity only in the inscriptions, which at the same time form part of the complex of lines and forms, and he remained committed to a deliberately awkward line verging on a scrawl. The few small sculptures that he produced between 1955 and 1959 are more disciplined, and their forms also suggest references to Classical culture. For example, in Untitled (painted resin, 1959; priv. col., see Zurich 1987 exh. cat., pl. 102) a pedestal of three superposed geometrical forms carries a row with interconnected staves suggesting a pan-pipe. In the first half of the 1960s Twombly made particular use of subjective, erotic signs in his paintings, and he began to use more intense and denser colours. In Leda and the Swan (1961; priv. col., see Bastian, 1978, pl. 43), red and pink marks gradually emerge from the concentrated turbulence of the brushwork to assume a recognizable form. In the Blackboard Paintings initiated in 1966 Twombly returned to contrasting lines against a light or dark background. Rhythmic marks, spatially projected geometric shapes, words, letters and numbers are characteristically scattered across the painting surface, as in Untitled (1969; Basle, Kstmus.). From 1976 Twombly again produced sculptures, lightly painted in white, suggestive of Classical forms. In the mid-1970s, in paintings such as Untitled (1976; priv. col., see Bastian, 1978, pl. 97), Twombly began to evoke landscape through colour (favouring brown, green and light blue), written inscriptions and collage elements, often distributing these features across the surface by means of right angles that emphasize the legibility of the image and its narrative character. In later works such as Gaeta-Sets (1986; see Bonn 1987 exh. cat., pp. 1316, 13844), however, Twombly treated landscape in a more purely abstract manner, freeing it from a literary context. http://www.oxfordar
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Work Style Period:
20th century
work_styleperiod
20th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Abstract Expressionist
work_styleperiod
Abstract Expressionist
Work Style Period
false
Work Worktype:
paintings (visual works)
work_type
paintings (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
paintings
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
paintings
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Material and Technique (display):
oil, pencil and crayon on canvas
Work Measurements (display):
199 cm (H) x 260 cm (W)
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
Museum of Modern Art
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
repository
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid:
504.1969
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid type:
accession
Work Location (Geographic) name:
New York, New York
Image Rights (display):
© Museum of Modern Art, New York. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Davis Art Images
Work Rights (display):
© Cy Twombly
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Collection
Collection info and contact:
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