The exhibition catalogue includes two softcover booklets enclosed in a hardcover portfolio-style case with ribbon closure: the first booklet, entitled Cy Twombly I, features a selection of works by the artist and a visual check list that offers a comprehensive overview of the exhibition; the second booklet, Cy Twombly II, features a foreword by Larry Gagosian and essays by Suzanne Hudson and Jenny Saville.
Larry Gagosian's foreword opens the second booklet of this publication, briefly recounting his forty years artistic relationship and friendship with Cy Twombly. The author focuses in particular on the artist's special affection for the exhibition space at 980 Madison Avenue, which he nicknamed “the water lily room”. Larry Gagosian writes: “His work was presented there six times during his life, and on more than one occasion he created a new body of work with that specific space in mind. And while our time at this location is coming to an end, it felt important that we show Cy’s work in this space one more time, with a number of important paintings kept by the artist”.
Suzanne Hudson focuses her essay entitled “Cy Twombly, Evergreen” on the artist's Green paintings, some of them included in the exhibition. The hermeneutic approach of this essay aims to reveal the genesis of these works, analysing analogies and differences with the artist’s œuvre. Quoting Mary Jacobus, the author observes: “He did make hundreds of drawings across the decade, and gravity bringing drips of paint down an upright plane does transmute or maybe even sublimate line. Drawing with colour additionally collapses ‘the traditional distinction between disegno and colore’ as Mary Jacobus aptly observes. Still, the green paintings, on which Twombly worked besides them, are remarkable for their eschewal of image/text relations”.
“Jenny Saville on Cy Twombly” is an essay that traces Cy Twombly's artistic journey through the eyes of the artist Jenny Saville. She discusses about the artist’s greatest masterpieces [Fifty Days at Iliam (1978); Quattro Stagioni (A Painting in Four Parts) (1993-1995); Untitled (Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor) (1994); Lepanto (2001); Bacchus paintings (2005)] to highlight the human and intellectual aspects in Twombly’s artistic research which inspires and influences her work over the years. One of the first works she mentions is Lepanto, about which she writes: “Twombly used abstract, contemporary, and modernist techniques like dripping, to represent things. For instance, he used drips to act as reflections in water. This inspired me to make my own series of works, red Stare Heads. His work taught me to be more painterly, to think about a wider vocabulary of painting, and the potentialities of the medium”.
For further information on Cy Twombly's solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery at the Madison Avenue venue in New York, please refer to the following exhibition catalogues, published by Gagosian Gallery: Cy Twombly. Bolsena Paintings, text by Heiner Bastian (1989); Cy Twombly: Ten Sculpture, edited by Nicola Del Roscio (1997); Cy Twombly. Coronation of Sesostris, essay by David Shapiro (2000); A Gathering of Time: Cy Twombly, Six Paintings and a Sculpture, essay by Linda Norden (2003); Cy Twombly. Bacchus. Psilax, Mainomenos, text by Olivier Berggruen (2005); Cy Twombly: Eight Sculptures, text by Kate Nesin (2009); Cy Twombly (2016); Cy Twombly, text by Briony Fer (2023).
To coincide with the exhibition and the display of the 1980 series Five Day Wait at Jiayuguan, Gagosian Gallery has reprinted the monograph Cy Twombly. Five Day Wait at Jiayuguan in limited edition. The monograph was originally published by Gabriele Stocchi in 1981.
Published in 2025 on the occasion of the exhibition Cy Twombly at Gagosian Gallery, New York (January 23 -March 22, 2025).
Cy Twombly. Texts by Suzanne Hudson, Jenny Saville. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2025. English edition.