This volume includes the following chapters: “Introduction”; “The Camera As A Tool”; “Aesthetic Quarantine”; “Between Gesture and Intention: From Visual to Mental, From State of Mind to Material”; and “The Last Years: Pleasure and Constant Renewal”. This is followed by a Spanish version of the text, “Del Estado Mental a lo Tangible: El Cosmos Fotográfico de Cy Twombly.” Carlos Peris maintains throughout that “Twombly’s photography can be understood only in conjunction with a specific primary goal: his desire to capture the image in order to hold onto the aesthetic and his state of mind in which the shot was taken…These photographic objects served Twombly as a constant reference, and he distributed them around his homes, studios, and workplaces…In essence, photography was not merely a medium Twombly turned to in a casual or anecdotal mode” (10). Connections between Twombly’s photography and his work in other media—painting, sculpture, and drawing—are foregrounded throughout. Photographs discussed in this volume include Fulton St. Studio (1954), Celtic Boat (1994), Painting Detail (1999), and Self-Portrait (2002). The volume is also interspersed with photographs of the artist at work, rearranging photographs on tables in his studio, and using a photocopier as part of his process of producing photographic prints. Some of these photographs are rarely reproduced elsewhere and therefore may be of particular interest to scholars of Twombly’s photography. 

For more on Twombly’s photographs, see also Cy Twombly: Photographs, Volume II, published by Gagosian (2015); Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951–2007, ed. Laszlo Glozer (2008); Twombly: Photographs, published by Brazos Projects (2000); Cy Twombly Photographs: Lyrical Variations, published by the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art (2016); Cy Twombly: Photographs, published by Matthew Marks Gallery (1993); Cy Twombly: A Survey of Photographs 1954–2011, published by Gagosian Gallery (2012); and Cy Twombly: Photographs, 1951–1999, ed. Nicola Del Roscio (2002). Scholars interested in this volume may also consult other major 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).

(Publication description by Jamie Danis)

From State of Mind to the Tangible. The Photographic Cosmos of Cy Twombly by Carlos Peris. Published by Gagosian and Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, 2022. 72 page, fully illustrated. Spanish/English edition.