News: RIP Cy Twombly

Untitled, 1970 - distemper and chalk on canvas, 70.5cm x 100cm

Yesterday, one of the greatest living artists, Cy Twombly passed away in Rome, most likely from complications from cancer. He was 83.
 
An American artist, Twombly was known for his large, graffiti like paintings. He began his career in New York in the mid-1950s, a time when he shared a studio space with Robert Rauschenberg, whom he was also having an affair with, and Jasper Johns. In 1957, Twombly moved to Italy and later Rome, where he married the Italian Tatia Franchetti, in 1959. Tatia was the sister of his patron Giorgio Franchetti. He has a son, Cyrus Alessandro Twombly, who is also a painter and lives in Rome.
 
Cy Twombly’s last exhibition was entitled Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters and went on display at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London on June 29th, 2011 less than a week before the artist’s death. The show was conceived around a quote by Twombly “I would’ve liked to have been Poussin, if I’d had a choice, in another time.”
 
Jerry Saltz, art critic for New York Magazine, wrote a celebration of the Twonbly’s life, read it here.