This catalogue includes a preface and acknowledgements by Cathleen S. Gallander, an essay by Susan C. Larsen, a chronology of the artist’s life up to date of publication, a list of monographs to date of publication, a catalogue list, a list of lenders to the exhibition, and a list of individual exhibitions of Twombly’s work to date of publication. 

Larsen opens with the assertion that “to enter the work of Cy Twombly is to discover a place where time is both contour and reflection” (16). She frames his practice as a “revival” of antiquity and classical mythology, referring to it as “art which celebrates the cultivated sensuality of the classical Western tradition while speaking of it in the hushed and tentative tones of the modern age” (16). She offers a brief biography of the artist, writing of his travels and eventual move to Italy as having “the ethic…of the voyager” (18). She links Twombly to Nicholas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David. Turning to his signature line, she suggests that it might be “considered as discourse” (20). She insists on the distinction between Twombly’s practice and graffiti, insisting on the “control and spontaneity” (22) of the former. She then offers extended readings of individual artworks such as Birth of Venus (1962), focusing on connections to and citations of Leonardo da Vinci, and Untitled (1970), with its collaged inclusion of a reproduction of David’s Reconcililiation of the Romans and the Sabines. She likewise discusses Twombly’s recurrent linked returns to Orpheus, Dionysus, and Narcissus in the 1970s. She concludes that “Twombly’s art reveals a life of reason, of passion, and sensitivity which holds nothing back and yet does not speak primarily of the self” (50).

For more on Twombly’s early practice and on the artworks discussed in this exhibition catalogue, see also major retrospective catalogues and monographs, such as: 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); and Cy Twombly: Making Past Present, eds. Christine Kondoleon and Kate Nesin(2020). Those researching Twombly’s works on paper may also consult: Cy Twombly: Works on Paper, published by Galerie Karsten Greve (2013); Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper, published by the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (2015); and major monographs on Twombly’s practice that discuss works on paper, such as Richard Leeman’s Cy Twombly: A Monograph (2005). 

(Publication description by Jamie Danis)

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Cy Twombly. Works on Paper 1954–1976 at the Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach.

Cy Twombly. Works on Paper 1954–1976. Text by Susan C. Larsen. Published by Newport Harbor Art Museum,  Newport, CA, 1981. English edition.