Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Painted in Rome in October of 1961, Cy Twombly's 'Untitled' is a distillation of the artist's love affair with the Eternal City.
Four years earlier, Twombly had left New York and his fellow Abstract Expressionists to find inspiration in antiquity, following in the tradition of Michelangelo, Raphael, Poussin and Turner. In Rome, he married the artist and aristocrat Luisa Tatiana Franchetti and set up his studio among the ancient ruins, absorbing the city's art and architecture and diving into its literature and history.
Churning strokes of soft pinks, deep reds and earthy browns guide the viewer's eyes over swathes of white paint and exposed ground bright as the midday Mediterranean sun. It was during his time in Rome that Twombly first developed his signature gestural script. In 'Untitled' and the works that followed, Twombly pushes this graphic style to new limits while incising names from ancient myth and poetry.
Inscribing 'Roma' into the bottom of the canvas, Twombly brings together modernism and thousands of years of tradition, offering a monument to his adopted home.
🔗 Discover Cy Twombly's 'Untitled' from The Collection of Agnes Gund: christies.com/en/events/the-collection-of-agnes-gund?add_lang=en&cid=EM_SM_O_YT_Inc_CON____2021CNY0525_GundTwombly___VID_LinkInBio
📅 20th Century Evening Sale | New York | 18 May
Painted in Rome in October of 1961, Cy Twombly's 'Untitled' is a distillation of the artist's love affair with the Eternal City.
Four years earlier, Twombly had left New York and his fellow Abstract Expressionists to find inspiration in antiquity, following in the tradition of Michelangelo, Raphael, Poussin and Turner. In Rome, he married the artist and aristocrat Luisa Tatiana Franchetti and set up his studio among the ancient ruins, absorbing the city's art and architecture and diving into its literature and history.
Churning strokes of soft pinks, deep reds and earthy browns guide the viewer's eyes over swathes of white paint and exposed ground bright as the midday Mediterranean sun. It was during his time in Rome that Twombly first developed his signature gestural script. In 'Untitled' and the works that followed, Twombly pushes this graphic style to new limits while incising names from ancient myth and poetry.
Inscribing 'Roma' into the bottom of the canvas, Twombly brings together modernism and thousands of years of tradition, offering a monument to his adopted home.
🔗 Discover Cy Twombly's 'Untitled' from The Collection of Agnes Gund: christies.com/en/events/the-collection-of-agnes-gund?add_lang=en&cid=EM_SM_O_YT_Inc_CON____2021CNY0525_GundTwombly___VID_LinkInBio
📅 20th Century Evening Sale | New York | 18 May
