Nov 16, 2014 · I don't know how many 'Triple Elvis' paintings there are, but there's 22 of the 'Double Elvis' versions. A similar series, which featured in Christie's mega $850m sale in New York last week, is Cy Twombly's 'Blackboard' paintings.
Oct 21, 2014 · The current record for a Twombly work is held by Poems to the sea (in 24 parts) (1959), which more than tripled its low estimate when it sold for $21,669,000 at Sotheby’s New York in November 2013.
Nov 14, 2015 · Greve sees a growing demand for Twombly works across all stages of his career. “The body of his work is very small,” explained Greve. “I …
One of the famous series of Blackboard paintings that Cy Twombly made between 1966 and 1971, this large, over six-feet-long by five-feet-high painting of a tumultuous and burgeoning progression of spiraling lines is one of a magnificent group of lasso-loop paintings made in this year that mark the culmination of this dramatic and singular period in Twombly’s career.
In 1966 Twombly's art underwent a dramatic change when the artist embarked on what was to become a highly celebrated series of works now sometimes known as the "blackboard" paintings. Distinguishable for their strict graphic regularity, severe formal restraint and often apparent emptiness, these paintings mark a significant departure from the ...
American abstract painter Cy Twombly's 1970 painting, Untitled (Rome), could fetch between US$35 million and US$45 million at Sotheby's evening sale of contemporary art on May 12 in New York.Apr 29, 2021
Twombly played an equally significant role in opening pathways beyond the high-minded purity and frequent machismo of Abstract Expressionism, the dominant painting style in the late 1940s and '50s, when the three men entered the New York art world.Jul 6, 2011
PaintingSculptureCalligraphyCy Twombly/Forms
Beginning in the early 1990s, he used specialized copiers to enlarge his Polaroid images on matte paper, resulting in subtle distortions that approximate the timeless qualities of his paintings and sculptures. In 1995 the Cy Twombly Gallery opened across the street from the Menil Collection in Houston.
Twombly ran his fingers through the paint to make small channels and in several places used a stick or brush handle to etch fine lines. He used some oil paint much like chewed gum, to form little gobs atop the canvas, which were ultimately covered with house paint to integrate them into the whole surface.
While in the army, Twombly modified the Surrealist technique of automatic drawing by creating compositions in the dark - after lights out. These "blind" drawings resulted in the kind of elongated, distorted forms and curves that we see in this work.Jun 5, 2014
One of the attractions of contemporary art, from the market's point of view, is the fact that so much of it comes in 'series'. An example is Andy Warhol's 'Elvis' paintings, one of which, a 'Triple Elvis', sold last week at Christie's in New York for a record $82m.
One of the attractions of contemporary art, from the market's point of view, is the fact that so much of it comes in 'series'. An example is Andy Warhol's 'Elvis' paintings, one of which, a 'Triple Elvis', sold last week at Christie's in New York for a record $82m.
In November, one of Cy Twombly’s “blackboard” paintings will go up for sale at Christie’s and may set a new record for the artist at auction. Created in 1970, the painting, Untitled, made of white wax crayon lines against a gray background, executed in four rows of exuberant scrawl, is expected to bring between $35- and $55 million.
Twombly’s name has been frequently reappearing in the press for another work, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves, which has been at the heart of a battle between art dealer Larry Gagosian and billionaire collector Ron Perelman (see “ Ron Perelman vs. the Whole “Ugly” Art Market “). Perelman claimed he was quoted a price of $8 million for the work, but when he expressed his desire to purchase it was told that it was sold to another buyer, only to have it come back on the market months later for $10.5 million. Perelman believed the price was unfair. Whether or not it was in that case, it seems Twombly’s market is on the up and up.
The Last Paintings, Twombly's most recent solo exhibition, began in Los Angeles in early 2012.
Twombly was a recipient of numerous awards. In 1984 he was awarded the "Internationaler Preis für bildende Kunst des Landes Baden-Württemberg" and in 1987 the "Rubenspreis der Stadt Siegen" [ de]. Most notably, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in 1996.
Life and career. Twombly was born in Lexington, Virginia, on April 25, 1928. Twombly's father, also nicknamed "Cy", pitched for the Chicago White Sox. They were both nicknamed after the baseball great Cy Young, who pitched for, among others, the Cardinals, Red Sox, Indians, and Braves .
Twombly bought a house and rented a studio in Gaeta in the early 1990s. Twombly and Tatiana, who died in 2010, never divorced and remained friends. In 2011, after suffering from cancer for several years, Twombly died in Rome after a brief hospitalization. A plaque in Santa Maria in Vallicella commemorates him.
In 1968, the Milwaukee Art Museum mounted the first retrospective of his art. Twombly had his next retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979, curated by David Whitney. The artist was later honored by retrospectives at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1987 (curated by Harald Szeemann ), the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, in 1988, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1994, with additional venues in Houston, Los Angeles, and Berlin. In 2001, the Menil Collection, the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the National Gallery of Art presented the first exhibition devoted entirely to Twombly's sculpture, assembling sixty-six works created from 1946 to 1998. The European retrospective Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons opened at the Tate Modern, London, in June 2008, with subsequent versions at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome in 2009. At the Tate Modern retrospective, a text read:
Rauschenberg encouraged him to attend Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina. At Black Mountain in 1951 and 1952 he studied with Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and Ben Shahn, and met John Cage. The poet and rector of the College, Charles Olson, had a great influence on him.
Cy Twombly spent his formative years slingshotting between various educational institutions. He began his formal training at The Boston MFA in 1947, and then spent another year studying at Washington and Lee University.
The Seven Stairs Gallery hosted Cy Twombly’s first exhibition in November 1951. Organized by photographers Aaron Siskind and Noah Goldowsky, gallerist Stuart Brent presented paintings made during Twombly’s prolific 1951 rise to fame.
In 1952, Twombly embarked on a journey to forever alter his trajectory. Awarded a substantial travel fellowship to broaden his artistic language, the painter invited Robert Rauschenberg to tag along on his eight-month escapade through Europe and Africa.
Cy Twombly joined the U.S. Army upon his return in 1953. Stationed in Georgia, he specialized in cryptography at Camp Gordon, crowding his days with intellectual puzzles and coded connotations. On weekends, he also rented rooms at local Augusta hotels to perfect his newfound compulsion with automatic drawing, an emerging Surrealist process.
Public perception of Cy Twombly shifted in years to follow. Settling in seaside town Gaeta, he produced mixed-media deliberating his affection for the Mediterranean, slowly creeping back toward color. His four-part Hero and Leandro (1981) remain his most famous 1980s works, detailing a tragic narrative of love and death by drowning.
By Christina Elia Christina Elia is a contributing writer whose work focuses on the intersection between visual culture and language. She was born and raised in New York City, where she currently writes about topics ranging from creative nonfiction to street art, culture, and travel.
Despite the headlines around Christie's $852m contemporary sale last week, it seems there are one or two stories that got buried amongst the hype.
One of the attractions of contemporary art, from the market's point of view, is the fact that so much of it comes in 'series'. An example is Andy Warhol's 'Elvis' paintings, one of which, a 'Triple Elvis', sold last week at Christie's in New York for a record $82m.
This video is a classic example of the guffy genre, with Christie's cataloguing of Robert Gober's 'Three Urinals' (1988). It made $3.5m earlier in New York this week.
I haven't yet seen Frederick Wiseman's new (much admired) documentary on the National Gallery, but I was interested to see in this review in The New Yorker that the film contains a scene in which:
Christie's have unearthed the above, previously unknown head study by Van Dyck, and will offer it for sale in December with an estimate of £200,000-£300,000. It relates to the series of head studies for Van Dyck's now lost portraits of the magistrates of Brussels, which were probably painted in the early 1630s.
This is well worth watching - a fascinating video from the Met on how they repaired a full-length marble 'Adam' by Tullio Lombardo which smashed to the ground in 2002, after its plywood base collapsed. The Met pioneered new restoration techniques for the project, which has taken over ten years.
The 'Grand Bargain' put in place to secure Detroit's debts has now been ratified, which means that no art needs to be sold from the Detroit Institute of Art. In effect, over $800m was raised to secure the DIA, from private donations, foundations and the State of Michigan.