Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings Volume VII: Addendum is the final volume of the catalogues raisonnés of paintings and includes both unfinished paintings and lost works. Heiner Bastian’s introductory essay includes recollections of conversations between the author and the artist. In this final reflection on Twombly’s practice in the series, Bastian suggests “recognizing poetic landscapes gleaned from the heartbeat of Apollonian and Dionysian forms of existence” (18). He also draws on Roland Barthes’s famous essay about the artist, “The Wisdom of Art,” and his concluding remarks have an overtly Hegelian inflection.

The unfinished paintings will be among the most interesting inclusions for scholars researching the artist’s working practice and should be considered in dialogue with the unfinished and rejected sculptures recorded in Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture Vol. II (2019). Many of the other entries catalogue lost works or works that were presumed to be lost in earlier catalogues raisonnés but subsequently recovered (e.g., Desert of Love [1959], notated as whereabouts unknown in Vol. IV but as in the collection of the Cy Twombly Foundation in Vol. VII). The volume will be of interest to scholars working on any period of the artist’s practice, as the entries range from the 1950s to the end of the artist’s life in 2011. Direct connections to thematic concerns present in earlier volumes are abundant throughout, including in the recurrence of themes such as 10 Days Wait at Mugda (1963) and Death in Naples (1963). Other notable inclusions are a new left panel for Ilium (One Morning Ten Years Later) completed in 2000, additional “blackboard” paintings, additional Green Paintings, and paintings conceived as Japanese screens. There are also many additional iterations of the large, loose swirls that characterize Twombly’s Bacchus works and other late paintings. Within the section of unfinished works, many relate to his floral cycles or his recurrent boat motif. There is also a notable abandoned canvas for Coronation of Sesostris (2000).

As scholars referencing this volume of the catalogue raisonné will likely have a focus on the artist’s working practice, further relevant literature includes Cy Twombly: Homes and Studios (2020) and Kate Nesin’s Cy Twombly’s Things (2014); though the latter addresses the sculptures rather than the paintings, it remains a uniquely sustained consideration of the material concerns of Twombly’s studio practice and addresses connections to his painting practice throughout. Other texts with a similar comprehensive focus may also be useful; see e.g., Writings on Cy Twombly, ed. Nicola Del Roscio (2002) and The Essential Cy Twombly, ed. Nicola Del Roscio (2014).

(Publication description by Jamie Danis)

Cy Twombly Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings Volume VII Addendum. Edited by Heiner Bastian. Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 2018. Fully illustrated. English/German bilingual edition.