Produced alongside an eponymous exhibition at the Collection Lambert en Avignon in 2007, this catalogue includes an essay from curator Éric Mézil printed in both French and English entitled “Cy Twombly: maître-artificier des fleurs de feu” (“Cy Twombly: Master-pyrotechnician of Fire Flowers”). After epigraphs from Hokusai and Simon Schama, Mézil notes that the works included in this exhibition were produced in Gaeta in the span of only a few months. The exhibition, conceived in collaboration with the artist, took “into consideration the very specific light of Provence and the aura of the hôtel particulier transformed into a museum” (172). He draws on a multitude of references for Twombly’s floral paintings, including “the Taoism of Sam Francis” (173) and Japanese master printmakers. He then explores links between Hokusai and Twombly, offering background on the former painter to emphasize “the convocation of Japanese art history [that] is intrinsically contained and assumed in this cycle” (173). Mézil likewise recounts the origins of the exhibition in a 2005 visit to Twombly’s Gaeta home and the artist’s subsequent visit to Avignon. He describes the artist’s careful attention to the physical space of the museum in preparing for his own exhibition there, followed by arrangement of final details in meetings in Paris and Gaeta. Mézil offers detailed accounts of the artworks exhibited, the origins of the title of the exhibition, and the “layers… as symbolic as they are real” (177) in Twombly’s paintings. Mézil likewise offers detailed accounts of the Japanese haikus and texts used as inscriptions in the paintings. Alongside this, he considers other possible referents such as Claude Monet’s waterlilies, Andy Warhol’s screenprints of flowers, and “above all” Pierre Matisse’s floral cut-outs. He recounts the artist discussing his paintings of peonies as giving “an impression of collapsing” (181), and the artist’s use of a monograph on Matisse in the studio. Mézil closes with reflections on the final forms of the artworks upon arrival in Avignon, attending to each of the changes made from the versions previously seen in the studio. He concludes that Twombly “sets things ablaze,” delighting in “pyromaniacal variations” (185).

The catalogue is also richly illustrated with full reproductions of the artworks included in the exhibition, detailed images of the large-scale paintings, and installation views of the exhibition. There is also one photograph of the artist’s warehouse studio where many of the artworks were completed and reproductions of several of Mézil’s suggested influences. The artworks in the exhibition include the eponymous 2006–2007 cycle of paintings alongside sculptures such as By the Ionian Sea (1988) and Turkish Delight (2000), as well as multiple bronze sculptures completed on Jupiter Island, Florida.

For more on these works, see also the Gagosian Gallery catalogue Cy Twombly: Blooming: A Scattering of Blossoms and Other Things (2007), with an essay by Robert Pincus-Witten.

(Publication description by Jamie Danis)

Published in 2007 on the occasion of the exhibition Cy Twombly. Blooming, A Scattering of Blossoms and Other Things at Collection Lambert, Avignon (June 5 – October 14, 2007).

Cy Twombly. Blooming, A Scattering of Blossoms and Other Things. Text by Éric Mézil.
Éditions Gallimard, Collection Lambert, 2007. 193 pages, fully illustrated. French/English edition.