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Cy Twombly

Centre Pompidou

30 November 16 - 24 April 17

The Centre Pompidou is presenting a major retrospective of the work of American artist Cy Twombly. A key event of the fall 2016, this exceptionally vast exhibition will only be shown in Paris, and will feature remarkable loans from private and public collections from all over the world.

Organized around three major cycles – Nine Discourses on Commodus (1963), Fifty Days at Iliam (1978) and Coronation of Sesostris (2000) – this retrospective covers the artist’s entire career in a chronological circuit of some 140 paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs, providing a clear picture of an extraordinarily rich body of work which is both intellectual and sensual. The selection includes many of Twombly’s iconic works, several of them never previously exhibited in France.

Born in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia, Cy Twombly died in 2011 at the age of 83 in Rome, where he spent a large part of his life. Unanimously acclaimed as one of the greatest painters of the second half of the 20th century, Twombly, who began dividing his life between Italy and America in the late Fifties, merged the legacy of American abstract expressionism with the origins of Mediterranean culture. From his first works in the early Fifties (marked by the so-called primitive arts, graffiti and writing) to his last paintings with their exuberant colour schemes, by way of the highly carnal compositions of the early Sixties and his response to minimalist and conceptual art during the Seventies, this retrospective emphasises the importance of cycles and series for Twombly, in which he reinvented great history painting. The exhibition is also the occasion to highlight the artist’s close relationship with Paris. The Centre Pompidou had devoted a first substantial retrospective to him as early as 1988.

The exhibition is organized in close collaboration with the Cy Twombly Foundation and its president, Nicola Del Roscio, and the Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio in Gaeta, with the support of the artist’s son, Alessandro Twombly.

 

Centre Pompidou (press release)

 

Cy Twombly, Untitled (Lexington), 1951
Oil-based house paint on canvas, 101,6 x 121,9 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio.
Cy Twombly ‘Volubilis’, 1953
White lead pencil, oil-based house paint, wax crayon on canvas, 139,7 x 193 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation, on deposit at the Menil Collection, Houston © The Menil Collection © Photo Hickey-Robertson, Houston
Cy Twombly, ‘Sperlonga Collage’, 1959
Pieces of semi-transparent cristal paper, oil-based house paint on paper, 85 x 62 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio © Photo : Mimmo Capone
Cy Twombly, ‘School of Athens’, 1961
Oil, oil-based house paint, coloured pencil and lead pencil on canvas, 190,3 x 200,5 cm
Private Collection © Robert Bayer, Bildpunkt AG, Munchenstein.
Cy Twombly, ‘Dutch Interior’, 1962
Wax crayon, lead pencil, oil on canvas, 265 x 300 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio
Cy Twombly ‘Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus’, 1962
259 x 302 cm, Oil, lead pencil on canvas
Collection Centre Pompidou, Paris © Centre Pompidou / P.Migeat / Dist. RMN-GP
Cy Twombly, ‘The Vengeance of Achilles’, 1962
Oil, lead pencil on canvas 300 x 175 cm
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich © Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich
View of the serie ‘Nine Discourses on Commodus’, 1963
Guggenheim Bilbao Museo, Bilbao © Cy Twombly Foundation, Rome © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, 2016
Cy Twombly, ‘Night Watch’, 1966
Oil-based house paint, wax crayon on canvas 190 x 200 cm
Private Collection, Courtesy Jeffrey Hoffeld Fine Arts, Inc. © Courtesy Cheim & Read
Cy Twombly ‘Apollo’, 1975
Oil pastel and lead pencil on paper, 150 x 134 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio © Photo : Mimmo Capone
Cy Twombly, ‘Venus’, 1975
Oil Pastel, lead pencil and collage on paper, 150 x 137 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio © Photo : Mimmo Capone
Cy Twombly, ‘Fifty Days at Iliam Shades of Achilles, Patroclus and Hector’, 1978
Part VI : Oil, Oil Pencil, lead pencil on canvas, 299,7 x 491,5 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphie, gift (by exchange) of Samuel S.White 3rd and Vera White, 1989-90-6 © Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphie
Cy Twombly Untitled (Bassano in Teverina), 1985
Oil, acrylic on wooden panel, 181,7 x 181,7 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy. Archives Nicola Del Roscio
Cy Twombly ‘Wilder Shores of Love’, 1985
Oil-based house paint , oil (oil paint stick), coloured pencil, lead pencil on wooden panel, 140 x 120 cm
Private Collection © Robert Bayer, Bildpunkt AG, Munchenstein
Cy Twombly ‘Summer Madness’, 1990
Acrylic, oil, coloured pencil, lead pencil on paper mounted on wooden panels, 150 x 126 cm
Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © BKP, Berlin. RMN-Grand Palais / Image BStGS
Cy Twombly ‘Coronation of Sesostris’, 2000
Part VI : Acrylic, paint stick, wax crayon, lead pencil on canvas, 203,7 x 155,6 cm
Pinault Collection © Pinault Collection / Photo Robert Mc Keever
Cy Twombly ‘Blooming’, 2001-2008
Acrylic, wax crayon on 10 wooden panels, 250 x 500
Private collection © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio © Photo: Studio Silvano, Gaeta
Cy Twombly Untitled, (A Gathering of Time), 2003
Acrylic on canvas, 215,9 x 267,3 cm
Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © BKP, Berlin. RMN-Grand Palais / Image BStGS
Cy Twombly, Untitled (Bacchus), 2005
Acrylic on canvas , 317,5 x 417,8 cm
Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © BKP, Berlin. RMN-Grand Palais / Image BStGS
Cy Twombly ‘Winter’s Passage Luxor (Porto Ercole)’, 1985
Wood, screw, paint, coloured pencil on paper 53,5 x 105 x 51 cm
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich © Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich
Cy Twomby, Untitled (Lexington), 2004
Wood , screw, rope, scakcloth, plaster, synthetic resin paint, 206,5 x 44,5 x 45 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Sammlung Udo and Anette Brandhorst © Photo : Jochen Littkemann
Cy Twombly, ‘Alessandro Twombly’, 1965
Dry print on cardboard 43,2 x 28 cm
Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio

 


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