PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT COLLECTOR Cy Twombly Untitled 1960 wax crayon, lead pencil, oil based house paint on canvas 37 1/2 x 39 in. (95.2 x 99.2 cm) Signed, inscribed and dated "Cy Twombly Roma MCMXXXXXX" middle right.
Provenance Galleria La Tartaruga, Rome Private Collection, Rome Galerie Klewan, Munich Sonnabend Gallery, New York Peder Bonnier Gallery, New York Galerie Christian Fayt, Knokke Galerie Folker Skulima, Berlin Holly Solomon Gallery, New York Germans van Eck, New York Wouter F. Germans, New York Jean Zimmermann, New York Galerie Christian Fayt, Knokke Hottlet Collection, Antwerp André Simoens Gallery, Brussels. Acquired directly from the above by the present owner, 2006 Literature H. Bastian, Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume I 1948-1960, Munich: Schirmer-Mosel, 1992, no. 155, p. 249 (illustrated) A. Taschen, New Paris Interiors, United States: Taschen, 2008, n.p. (illustrated) Catalogue Essay “Each line is now the actual experience with its own innate history. It does not illustrate – it is the sensation of its own realization.” Cy Twombly 1957 By 1960, the year in which Untitled was painted, Cy Twombly was residing on the Via di Monserrato in Rome. He had become personally and artistically enveloped by the grandeur and majesty of the ancient city. For Twombly, the Eternal City sparked a newly found interest in the history of visual mark marking, and the present lot, Untitled, 1960, reflects the artist’s absorption of his new and culturally vibrant environment. Greco-Roman history became a pre-dominant theme for Twombly, whose graffiti-like, colorful strokes, trace the lines of classical mythology and history, while their rapid execution is marked by an outpouring of passionate emotion. The artist explains that “The line is the feeling, from a soft thing, a dreamy thing, to something hard, something arid, something lonely, something ending, something beginning. “(Cy Twombly “Interview with David Sylvester” in David Sylvester Interviews with American Artists, London, 2001, pp. 178-179). Twombly’s lyrical lines, scratchings, numbers and diagrams allude to a delicate, hauntingly legible narrative that lies beneath the explosive and frenzied surface. Untitled, 1960, holds several scenes executed upon a soft white canvas. A vertical scribble, rendered in a slate gray, begins the composition along the left hand corner, giving way to a sole line of cerulean blue. A fury of graphite lines, traverse and dissect the canvas, beginning at center left where a single graphite line curves up, opening up to form an elongated teardrop, filled with a light pink, blush color. Four ovals fan out around the pink pond, numbered accordingly: 1, 2, 3, 4, directly below, in graphite, there stands a cutaway drawing of stairs, each step, accordingly counted: 1, 2, 3, 4. By deciphering these visual clues, Twombly has carefully and craftily drawn us a beautiful map. The original graphite line represents the Via del Teatro di Marcello in Rome, which converges around the Piazza D’Aracoeli. The “Steps” as inscribed by Twombly harks back to his earlier visit to Rome with his long-time friend Robert Rauschenberg who created a series of black and white photographs entitled Cy + Roman Steps (I-V). This series of five photographs depicts “Twombly descending the iconic marble steps of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli. In the first photograph, Twombly’s feet and lower legs are barely visible near the top of the composition, appearing minuscule and insignificant in contrast to the dramatically rising steps. As the sequence progresses, Twombly descends the steps and approaches the camera’s lens, growing larger and gaining detail with each frame. Twombly and Rauschenberg had become intimately involved just before leaving New York. The unmistakably erotic charge of the progression—centered, after all, on Twombly’s groin—offers us a window on photographer and subject coming to terms with their new relationship against the backdrop of Rome.” (Cy + Roman Steps (I-V), 1952, Collection SFMOMA, Purchase through a gift of Phyllis Wattis, SFMOMA.org) By incorporating these same stairs, a part of his relational past, as a painterly motif almost te
PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT COLLECTOR Cy Twombly Untitled 1960 wax crayon, lead pencil, oil based house paint on canvas 37 1/2 x 39 in. (95.2 x 99.2 cm) Signed, inscribed and dated "Cy Twombly Roma MCMXXXXXX" middle right.
Provenance Galleria La Tartaruga, Rome Private Collection, Rome Galerie Klewan, Munich Sonnabend Gallery, New York Peder Bonnier Gallery, New York Galerie Christian Fayt, Knokke Galerie Folker Skulima, Berlin Holly Solomon Gallery, New York Germans van Eck, New York Wouter F. Germans, New York Jean Zimmermann, New York Galerie Christian Fayt, Knokke Hottlet Collection, Antwerp André Simoens Gallery, Brussels. Acquired directly from the above by the present owner, 2006 Literature H. Bastian, Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume I 1948-1960, Munich: Schirmer-Mosel, 1992, no. 155, p. 249 (illustrated) A. Taschen, New Paris Interiors, United States: Taschen, 2008, n.p. (illustrated) Catalogue Essay “Each line is now the actual experience with its own innate history. It does not illustrate – it is the sensation of its own realization.” Cy Twombly 1957 By 1960, the year in which Untitled was painted, Cy Twombly was residing on the Via di Monserrato in Rome. He had become personally and artistically enveloped by the grandeur and majesty of the ancient city. For Twombly, the Eternal City sparked a newly found interest in the history of visual mark marking, and the present lot, Untitled, 1960, reflects the artist’s absorption of his new and culturally vibrant environment. Greco-Roman history became a pre-dominant theme for Twombly, whose graffiti-like, colorful strokes, trace the lines of classical mythology and history, while their rapid execution is marked by an outpouring of passionate emotion. The artist explains that “The line is the feeling, from a soft thing, a dreamy thing, to something hard, something arid, something lonely, something ending, something beginning. “(Cy Twombly “Interview with David Sylvester” in David Sylvester Interviews with American Artists, London, 2001, pp. 178-179). Twombly’s lyrical lines, scratchings, numbers and diagrams allude to a delicate, hauntingly legible narrative that lies beneath the explosive and frenzied surface. Untitled, 1960, holds several scenes executed upon a soft white canvas. A vertical scribble, rendered in a slate gray, begins the composition along the left hand corner, giving way to a sole line of cerulean blue. A fury of graphite lines, traverse and dissect the canvas, beginning at center left where a single graphite line curves up, opening up to form an elongated teardrop, filled with a light pink, blush color. Four ovals fan out around the pink pond, numbered accordingly: 1, 2, 3, 4, directly below, in graphite, there stands a cutaway drawing of stairs, each step, accordingly counted: 1, 2, 3, 4. By deciphering these visual clues, Twombly has carefully and craftily drawn us a beautiful map. The original graphite line represents the Via del Teatro di Marcello in Rome, which converges around the Piazza D’Aracoeli. The “Steps” as inscribed by Twombly harks back to his earlier visit to Rome with his long-time friend Robert Rauschenberg who created a series of black and white photographs entitled Cy + Roman Steps (I-V). This series of five photographs depicts “Twombly descending the iconic marble steps of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli. In the first photograph, Twombly’s feet and lower legs are barely visible near the top of the composition, appearing minuscule and insignificant in contrast to the dramatically rising steps. As the sequence progresses, Twombly descends the steps and approaches the camera’s lens, growing larger and gaining detail with each frame. Twombly and Rauschenberg had become intimately involved just before leaving New York. The unmistakably erotic charge of the progression—centered, after all, on Twombly’s groin—offers us a window on photographer and subject coming to terms with their new relationship against the backdrop of Rome.” (Cy + Roman Steps (I-V), 1952, Collection SFMOMA, Purchase through a gift of Phyllis Wattis, SFMOMA.org) By incorporating these same stairs, a part of his relational past, as a painterly motif almost te
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
