Lot Essay
This work will be included in the Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Drawings being compiled by Heiner Bastian, Berlin and is registered with the preliminary archive number 70-35.
This work relates to a series of paintings on grey backgrounds produced in Rome and New York in 1970, as well as a group of works on paper known as Roman Notes, also executed in 1970. They are characterised by a wirey calligraphy that joyfully winds its way horizontally across the canvas like flowing handwriting on a page.
Heiner Bastian writes, "As if in rebellion against the humdrum fact, [Twombly's] 'sentence' seems to parse a nameless order that lights the canvas in a gently falling rhythm. This 'script' undulates through the pictorial space, thrilling itself and exceeding all contigencies of final release; yet as enigmatic inscription, it denies resolution." (In: Heiner Bastian, Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, vol. III 1966-1971, Berlin 1994, p. 33).
This work relates to a series of paintings on grey backgrounds produced in Rome and New York in 1970, as well as a group of works on paper known as Roman Notes, also executed in 1970. They are characterised by a wirey calligraphy that joyfully winds its way horizontally across the canvas like flowing handwriting on a page.
Heiner Bastian writes, "As if in rebellion against the humdrum fact, [Twombly's] 'sentence' seems to parse a nameless order that lights the canvas in a gently falling rhythm. This 'script' undulates through the pictorial space, thrilling itself and exceeding all contigencies of final release; yet as enigmatic inscription, it denies resolution." (In: Heiner Bastian, Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, vol. III 1966-1971, Berlin 1994, p. 33).