SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Cy Twombly (1928–2011), born in Lexington, Virginia, trained at institutions including New York’s Art Students League and Black Mountain College. He formed lasting connections with Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. His 1952 journey to Italy and North Africa with Rauschenberg proved decisive, and Italy subsequently became a major centre of his life.
Painting, drawing, sculpture and photography form a body of work nourished by poetry and classical antiquity. Graphic marks and inscriptions bring cultural memory into contact with abstraction. Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus, a drawing from 1962, demonstrates this interest in ancient narratives. The cycle Fifty Days at Iliam, completed in 1978, develops his relationship with the Homeric world on a monumental scale.
This profile brings together identity references for Cy Twombly and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
Lempertz · Kornfeld
References include catalogue entries and available results; they do not all represent completed sales. Attributed works and special lots are excluded from the priced results.
Pencil on paper
Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus
Bleistift auf Papier
Auction date : 2024-11-30
Published result : 51660 EUR
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : 35000
View the lot at the auction house ↗pencil and colour crayon
Catalogue period : 2020-09-18
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 150000
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil on paper
Ohne Titel
Bleistift auf Papier
Auction date : 2016-12-03
Published result : 124000 EUR
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : 100000
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Coloured pencil
Sperlonga collage
Farbstift
Auction date : 2015-11-28
Published result : 111600 EUR
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : 50000
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
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