John and Dominique de Menil, for whom the prestigious Houston-based Menil Collection is named, had a long relationship with Cy Twombly dating back to the 1960s when they began collecting the work of the eccentric artist. Today, the museum houses the largest Twombly collection in North America, including a private gallery designed by Renzo Piano and dedicated to the artist. Last year, the collection grew significantly when the Cy Twombly Foundation donated 121 works, none of which had ever been shown in the US, 27 of which were labeled “Painting Gift: Cy Twombly,” until August 9.
The works span nearly four decades, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, and include some from 2005, six years before the artist’s death. Among them is a collage titled Narcissus (1975), which at first glance, appears as a name written in crayon on a white background. But a closer look reveals two pieces of paper, which form a collage in the technical sense, the word is engraved twice, one above the other, as if it were a figure, thus showing the titular hunter of legends who entered with his face.
Narcissus it is more like a painting than a collage, in some ways it is compatible with the bulk of the gift, mainly paintings and drawings on paper. “On the drawing side, we had a lot of work, but there was a big gap, and now we can tell the whole story of Twombly in every media and every age,” Edouard Kopp, executive director of the Menil Drawing Institute, told the Observer.
Featuring abstract surfaces painted in acrylic and oil on handmade paper. Considering the works of Claude Monet, its texture also refers to Twombly’s gray paintings of the 1980s (also included), which were exhibited at the Venice Biennale. “The paint is applied intensively, an interesting and tactile brush, impasto not in all places, not evenly, but because of that, the paper is really wavy,” is how Kopp describes the place. “The composition is very subtle and the colors are warm and cool, and it has strength and power… it’s a little confusing.”
“Disturbing” is a polite way to describe how viewers often interpret Twombly’s work; “Scribble-scrabble” is another. Young artist and critic Donald Judd called Twombly’s 1964 show at the Castelli Gallery a fiasco, writing in Arts Magazine: “In these paintings, there is swirling red paint mixed with a little yellow and white and superimposed on a gray medium. There are a few drips and splatters and there is an occasional pencil line.”
“I think it got his attention,” Kopp said of Judd’s scathing review. “People who don’t know his art well may start insulting him, and another insult may be his unusual manner.
To do so, he explored the element of luck in his work, sometimes drawing in complete darkness, relying on natural instincts and ancient forces to guide his hand. “You let your mind and your hand go, and it can be completely unconscious,” said Kopp, noting that some such activities date back to 1954, when Twombly served as a cryptologist for the US Army. “When you do a blind drawing, it’s very different from doing an academic drawing where you know exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Here, you don’t know what you’re going to achieve. The act of drawing becomes an act of discovery. So, you let chance take its toll. Then you unscramble to see what you’ve done.”
Born in Lexington, Virginia, Twombly was named after the legendary Cy Young player by his father, a former pitcher for the Chicago White Sox. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Lexington’s Washington and Lee University, and also studied at the Art Students League of New York, where she fell in love with Robert Rauschenberg, who suggested that she attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There, he met artists such as Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Ben Shahn and John Cage before moving to Rome in 1957, where he spent most of his career.
When he was 24 years old, he wrote about the grant application, “What I am trying to establish is that contemporary art is not isolated, it is something with roots, tradition and continuity. For me, the past is the source. Because all art is relevant to the present.”
Narcissus one example of his books is based on fictional characters. Not included here are his pieces from 1962, Leda and Swan again Birth of Venus. Another example is his Fifty Days in Iliama 10-part cycle completed in the 1970s and inspired by Homer’s The Iliad. “He is an artist of the moment, but he is also deeply connected to the past,” comments Kopp. “He was impressed by going back to the roots of humanity, the roots of art. So for me, he’s always between the past and the present.”
Twombly’s references in some ways predate the past, reaching as far back as cave paintings, ancient mark-making, headless scribblings and haunting messages that place the burden of interpretation on the viewer.
“With the art of painting, he was interested in connecting back to the past history of man, the essential qualities and the act of painting. He does not try to communicate clearly. He tries to communicate with the field of illusion, the state of investigation. He belongs to the generation that was interested in the idea of an open world, the idea of Umberto Eco,” said Kopp, referring to his collection of Italian text192omi ” of books, Opera apertasuggesting that literary works are active, dynamic fields of meaning.
“Twombly is interested in creating work where the viewer is fully involved. You have to bring your body, your gaze, some information, and he’ll give you a glimpse, some clues and maybe a title,” offered Kopp, adding after a pause, “although most of his work is nameless.”
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