This large exhibition catalogue includes the following entries: Serge Lasvignes, “Avant-propos”; Bernard Blistène, “Préface”; Jonas Storsve, “Quelques considerations sur la personne et l’oeuvre de Cy Twombly”; John Yau, “Cy Twombly, Charles Olson et le ‘postmoderne archaïque”; Alessandro Twombly, “Les peintures marocaines de Cy Twombly”; Paul Winkler, “Lex”; Nicholas Cullinan, “Nine Discourses on Commodus, ou le manifique ‘fiasco’ de Cy Twombly”; Thierry Greub, “Les Antiques chez Cy Twombly”; Katharina Grosse, “C.T. S.T.”; Richard Leeman, “Le corps parlant de Cy Twombly”; Sally Mann, “Extraits de: Hold Still: A Memoir with photographs”; Guillaume Cassegrain, “‘Say Goodbye Catullus…’ Cy Twombly et la coulure”; Giorgio Agamben, “Belleza che cade”; Edmund de Waal, “‘Blanche, blanche, blanche: La mer selon Cy Twombly”; Éric Mezil, “Yvon Lambert: Souvenirs de Cy Twombly”; Bernd Klüser, “Cy Twombly en vedette. La collection privée d’Udo et Anette Brandhorst,” a chronology and anthology of texts from Nicola Del Roscio, a list of monographic exhibitions, a bibliography, and a list of works exhibited. Color reproductions are interspersed throughout. The authors in this volume represent many figures with personal relationships to the artist as well as major scholars of his practice; given this, along with the comprehensive nature of the survey, the volume is likely to be of use to scholars working on any period or medium in Twombly’s practice. 

In 2016, an English-language version of this catalogue was published under the same title; all of the same essays and texts appear in it. Note also that certain texts that appear in these volumes, such as Giorgio Agamben’s “Beauty that falls” and Sally Mann’s excerpts from her memoir, originally appeared in other publications and are therefore also accessible elsewhere. 

Scholars interested in this volume may also consult other major catalogues and monographs, such as: Richard Leeman’s Cy Twombly: A Monograph (2005); Mary Jacobus’s Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint (2016); Thierry Greub’s Inscriptions (2022); Cy Twombly: A Retrospective, ed. Kirk Varnedoe (1994); Cy Twombly: Œuvres sur papier 1973–1977, Musée de Grenoble (2023); Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters, ed. Nicholas Cullinan (2011); and Cy Twombly: Making Past Present, eds. Christine Kondoleon and Kate Nesin (2020). 

(Publication description by Jamie Danis)

This catalogue was published in conjunction with the retrospective Cy Twombly at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (November 30, 2016 – April 24, 2017).

Cy Twombly. Edited by Jonas Storsve. Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2016. 320 pages, fully illustrated. French edition. English edition published by Sieveking Verlag, Munich, 2017.