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Lot Essay
Offered from the celebrated collection of Thomas and Doris Ammann, the present work belongs to a rare series of sculptures made by Cy Twombly between 1976 and 1977. Prominently exhibited throughout its lifetime, it is one of a number of works by the artist that the Ammanns acquired from the 1980s onwards. Introduced by Heiner Bastian, Twombly and the couple became close friends and travel companions, visiting exhibitions across the world including the Venice Biennale. They particularly admired his lyrical style, as well as his invocation of Latin culture. Composed of two tiered columns, the present work recalls the classical edifices of Roman antiquity. At the same time, its sleek, elemental rigour captures the dialogue with Minimalism that surfaced in Twombly’s work from the late 1960s onwards. Heralding his return to sculpture after sixteen years, the work was cast from one of four cardboard assemblages made in 1976, and marks the artist’s first foray into synthetic resin.
Twombly’s sculptures span the breadth of his oeuvre, working in close though ultimately asynchronous dialogue with his paintings. The playwright Edward Albee described him as ‘that rare artist equally important in both fields’, even going so far as to suggest that he ‘will be known as the great sculptor who also did some amazing paintings’ (E. Albee, quoted in Cy Twombly: Sculptures 1992-2005, exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich 2006, pp. 10-11). Strange, mysterious objects that seem to exist of their own accord, Twombly’s sculptures represent a fascinating and illuminating strand of his practice. Having taken the myths and relics of Rome as his muse after moving to Italy in 1957, he had long surrounded himself with monuments and ruins. Stone pillars, often displaying busts, filled his studio. He typically coated his sculptures in white paint, invoking the grandeur of ancient marble. Just as his paintings seemed to encode a world in the process of formation, so too do his sculptures appear to hail from a land beyond time, at once alien and deeply familiar.
At the time of the present work, Twombly’s early sculptures were beginning to garner new recognition, thanks in part to their inclusion in his 1975 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia. The following year, the artist returned to the medium. Picking up the language of Untitled (1959, Kunsthaus Zurich)—a similarly vertical assemblage whose structure recalls a set of pan pipes—Twombly made four new works. Wrought from cardboard tubes that he used for storing rolled drawings, each was left open at the top. The third of these now resides in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. From the first two, Twombly made casts in synthetic resin. Painted by hand in the same white house paint he had used for his cardboard works, each is distinguished by its unique pattern of drips and strokes. In 1979, the artist held his first ever dedicated sculpture exhibition at Galleria Lucio Amelio in Naples. The present work later featured in his first major touring retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 1987, as well as the 1996 Sao Paolo Biennial.
Elegant, sparse and refined, the work delights in its own enigma. Much like Twombly’s earliest sculptures, its origins in humble, found materials shares much in common with the language of Arte Povera, chiming in particular with Aligherio Boetti’s Colonna (Column) sculptures produced during the late 1960s. At the same time, its clean, formal simplicity invokes the self-referential objects of Minimalism, channelling the Apollonian spirit of order, logic and purity that had dominated his Bolsena paintings some years prior. Its open top allows taller viewers to peer into its hollow interior, creating a thrilling interplay of positive and negative space. For all its geometric abstraction, however, the work also harbours an organic, almost human quality. Its sentinel form is evocative of ancient Cycladic figures or distant statues. Rising before the viewer like a solitary beacon, it quivers with anthropomorphic charge. Past, present and future flicker at its edges, wrapped into a single, unearthly totem.
Twombly’s sculptures span the breadth of his oeuvre, working in close though ultimately asynchronous dialogue with his paintings. The playwright Edward Albee described him as ‘that rare artist equally important in both fields’, even going so far as to suggest that he ‘will be known as the great sculptor who also did some amazing paintings’ (E. Albee, quoted in Cy Twombly: Sculptures 1992-2005, exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich 2006, pp. 10-11). Strange, mysterious objects that seem to exist of their own accord, Twombly’s sculptures represent a fascinating and illuminating strand of his practice. Having taken the myths and relics of Rome as his muse after moving to Italy in 1957, he had long surrounded himself with monuments and ruins. Stone pillars, often displaying busts, filled his studio. He typically coated his sculptures in white paint, invoking the grandeur of ancient marble. Just as his paintings seemed to encode a world in the process of formation, so too do his sculptures appear to hail from a land beyond time, at once alien and deeply familiar.
At the time of the present work, Twombly’s early sculptures were beginning to garner new recognition, thanks in part to their inclusion in his 1975 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia. The following year, the artist returned to the medium. Picking up the language of Untitled (1959, Kunsthaus Zurich)—a similarly vertical assemblage whose structure recalls a set of pan pipes—Twombly made four new works. Wrought from cardboard tubes that he used for storing rolled drawings, each was left open at the top. The third of these now resides in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. From the first two, Twombly made casts in synthetic resin. Painted by hand in the same white house paint he had used for his cardboard works, each is distinguished by its unique pattern of drips and strokes. In 1979, the artist held his first ever dedicated sculpture exhibition at Galleria Lucio Amelio in Naples. The present work later featured in his first major touring retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 1987, as well as the 1996 Sao Paolo Biennial.
Elegant, sparse and refined, the work delights in its own enigma. Much like Twombly’s earliest sculptures, its origins in humble, found materials shares much in common with the language of Arte Povera, chiming in particular with Aligherio Boetti’s Colonna (Column) sculptures produced during the late 1960s. At the same time, its clean, formal simplicity invokes the self-referential objects of Minimalism, channelling the Apollonian spirit of order, logic and purity that had dominated his Bolsena paintings some years prior. Its open top allows taller viewers to peer into its hollow interior, creating a thrilling interplay of positive and negative space. For all its geometric abstraction, however, the work also harbours an organic, almost human quality. Its sentinel form is evocative of ancient Cycladic figures or distant statues. Rising before the viewer like a solitary beacon, it quivers with anthropomorphic charge. Past, present and future flicker at its edges, wrapped into a single, unearthly totem.