Lot 450 D

“Twombly occupies a unique position among the young generation of American artists. The loner, who left Paris in order to settle in Rome, is an outsider, a 'character'. His graphic language is poetry and commentary, fleeting gesture and écriture automatique, sexual liberation, affirmation and denial of one's own self. As full of ambiguity as is life, it appears on the edges of walls, in schoolyards, and on the pedestals of monuments. What is miraculous about this language, is that it comprises neither syntax nor logic but vibrates with life, breaks with all abundance of meaning through the white void. The synthetic notation creates a dense atmosphere which comes very close to what we call a >poetic world<. It, however, has nothing to do with literature in the literal sense of the word; it rather holds colour, form density, and gesture of the hand”. (Pierre Restany, Die Revolution des Zeichens, in: Harald Szeemann (ed.), Cy Twombly, Bilder, Arbeiten auf Papier, Skulpturen, exhib.cat. Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Munich 1987, p. 26)