Art I LIke: Cy Twombly

Yet more research for my Writing Pathway project, on Cy Twombly, American b. 1928, d. 2011, who has made a whole series of generally very large paintings which concentrate on mark making which resemble scribbles or perhaps writing.   His website is here and contains a huge range of images of his work since the 1950s.

Some of his work just looks like scribbling, but the overall effect is impressive, not least because of the enormous scale of his works.

Untitled, 1974, 68" x 85"

Unititled 
oil based house paint and wax crayon on canvas 
48 x 55 in. (122 x 140 cm.) 
Painted in 1967. 

Some of his works are smaller and done on paper, like this one,  Roman Notes: one plate, 1970, 34 x 28"

The following images are Untitled, 1971, a series of six lithograph 22 x30".  This is the first, the rest follow below.

Images copied from here.

Twombly also made assemblages of works like this, grouping several sheets together, as in this example, Roman Notes (Bastion 21-26) where each sheet is 34 x 27". 

Some of his pieces are absolutely massive.  

Notes III, 2005-2007, 96 x 144"

This one, Untitled, 1970,  is 13' x 21'.

The MoMA gallery website has a very illuminating description of how it was hung in MoMA, Mew York, requiring a whole team of 'roadies' and a hydraulic lift to get it into place.  It looks pretty fantastic once up, too.
(the link is here)  and the MoMA site describes it thus:


Twombly is a key member of the generation of American artists immediately following the Abstract Expressionists. Between 1967 and 1971 he produced a number of works on gray grounds. The largest in the series, this monumental painting features terse, colorless scrawls, reminiscent of chalk on a blackboard, that form no actual words. Twombly made this work using an unusual technique: he sat on the shoulders of a friend, who shuttled back and forth along the length of the canvas, thus allowing the artist to create his fluid, continuous lines.

Here is another image of some of his later works in a gallery setting, with an indication of their huge size.

Cy Twombly Sensations of the Moment, MUMOK exhibition view, Foto: MUMOK, Lisa Rastl, © MUMOK.

There are obvious connections between his works and the a-semic writing panels which I have been making for my project, although I had not until today really looked at his work.   In particular, I am interested in the scale of his pieces, something i still have to think about for Monday's college session.