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Cy Twombly
Untitled (3 works)
each: initialed and dated 61 (on the reverse)
wax crayon, pencil and ball point pen on paper
each: 33.5 by 35.5 cm. 14 by 14 in.
Executed in 1961.

These artworks have generously been loaned to the exhibition.

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The Artist
Collection Tatia Twombly
Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich
Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Cy Twombly - Dessins 1954 -1976, 1976, no. 25 (no. 122 only)

Nicola del Roscio, Cy Twombly: Drawings, Catalogue Raisonné Vol. 3 1961-1963, Munich, 2017, no. 120, 122, 123, pp. 93-94, illustrated in colour

M odulating bursts of line, form and colour erupt across the surface of Cy Twombly’s ambitious Untitled drawings, works that teeter on the threshold of legibility in a masterful interrogation of sign and symbol. An array of graffiti-like marks in silver-grey, coal black, burnt crimson and pale blue explode across the picture plane in a dynamic synthesis of scribbles, smudges and fractious scrawls. Rendered in interspersing strokes of wax crayon, pencil and pen, this enigmatic lexicon of signs and symbols bears the hallmark of Twombly’s practice, in which figuration and abstraction, fact and fiction, and history and myth blend and blur beyond tangible distinction. Executed in 1961, four years after he had first set up a studio in Rome, the present works signify a pivotal moment in the development of Twombly’s mature practice. All three Untitled drawings deliver the full force of the artist’s reflective integration of his encompassing experience and aesthetic absorption of Rome, combining a transcription of immediate lived experience with a fresh reinterpretation of the classical past.

In early 1960, Twombly and his family had moved into a grand new home on the Via di Monserrato in Rome. His everyday life was infused with the antiquarian splendour and colourful sights and smells of the quintessential classical city. Denoting a movement away from the measured rhythm of the artist’s earlier 1950s production, the present works signal an urgent and fractured transmutation of classical stimuli and the mythologically evocative Roman landscape. Through sinuous lines, urgent scrawls, frenetic numbers, and expressive bursts of colour, These three works enunciate a fragmented vision and reimagining of the ancient myths that permeate the culture of this historic city.

Multicoloured patches of wax crayon and graphite collide within these works and exemplify Twombly’s idiosyncratic, layered process of mark-making. Twombly has vigorously punctuated the composition’s expansive white field with symbols reproduced continuously throughout his oeuvre. With his trademark flurry of vibrant hues and violent mark-making, a cacophony of chromatic experimentation cascades across the work, exuding an irresistible kinaesthesia in every vibrant scrawl. Steeped in his erudite knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman literature, Untitled (3 works) bespeaks Twombly’s renowned dialogue with the classical past, his love of the gods and the mythical formation of ancient civilisation.

Upon his first visit to Rome in the early 1950s, Twombly was immediately taken by ancient forms of graffiti that he saw scrawled on the exteriors of historical Roman ruins; echoed with newfound ferocity in the graffiti-like strokes of the present work, the artist notes the profound influence the iconographic legacy of classical antiquity enacted upon his practice: “Generally speaking my art has evolved out of the interest in symbols abstracted, but never the less humanistic; formal as most arts are in their archaic and classic stages, and a deeply aesthetic sense of eroded or ancient surfaces of time.” (Cy Twombly quoted in: Nicola del Roscio, ed., Writings on Cy Twombly, p. 199)

Twombly’s work in the 1960s investigates the process of drawing, which veers towards—and eventually becomes—an exploration of signs and writing. The three present works were completed in the climatic vista of Val Gardena in Northern Italy. This location is carefully noted in the catalogue raisonné proving how important the locations of production were to the artist. Val Gardena is an imposing valley nestled in the heart of the Dolomites, an area that Twombly frequently visited in the early 60s. This dramatic landscape can be seen in the interpreted scrawls and gestures realised within these works.

Untitled (3 works) stands out for their visceral composition and colour palette; it is a singular summation across three works, that not only demonstrates Twombly’s deeply sensual mastery of material, but the remarkable, layered process of mark-making for which the artist is so acclaimed. Mediating a space between spontaneity and control, his scribbles are full of suggestive details but remain irresolute. With its colourful lines whose steady, progressive rise and fall insists on their attachment to the constraint of writing, Twombly reveals his interest in measurements and rhythms. Drawing from a wealth of subject matter as diverse as primordial times, hieroglyphics, calligraphy, mythology, and the clash between the ancient and the modern worlds, the present works delivers a palimpsest of history, time and space, at once confounding and deeply compelling.